davidw

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davidw
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  • Apple to buy back $100 billion in stock, raise dividend by 4%

    davidwdavidw
    Stock buy backs were rightly illegal up until the old nut Reagan made them okay. It is stock manipulation on the way into and out of the process. Here's hoping some day rational thought will prevail again since it did at one time.

    Buy backs are not "stock manipulation". The reason why buy backs were illegal before 1981 was because a company doing buy backs could easily manipulate the stock price, when doing their buy backs. Which is why the SEC came up with Rule 10b-18 in 1981. Rule 10b-18 set up some grounds rules on how buy backs must be done, so to limit the ability for companies to manipulate stock prices with their buy back trades. Rule 10b-18 is the reason why buy backs are no longer illegal as far as "stock manipulation" is concern.


    A company stock gong up after they announce a $100M buy back because of investors that likes the idea of buy backs and buying more shares, that is not "stock manipulation". That is no different than if a company announced that they will buy out an innovative company for $100M and investors liking that idea, driving the price up by buying more shares. It would be a form of "stock manipulation" if the company did not go through with the buy back, after announcing a $100M buy back.

    The reason why the SEC made buy backs illegal before 1981 was because a company would have been able to easily affect (manipulate) their stock prices during the trading day, by buying back some shares at every dip. Thus preventing the stock price from dropping any further. Or bidding up the price by asking above independent market prices and then buying back at that higher price. And they can do this with every buy back trade they make. But Rule 10b-18 changed all that. With buy backs, a company can only go through 1 broker and all the shares purchased back can not be higher than the highest independent bid. Plus there's a limit to how many shares they can buy back per trading day and trades can not be done toward the beginning or end of the trading day, where share prices are most affected by a large purchase. After market trades can not be higher than the day closing price.


    Now Rule 10b-18 only protects a company from being accused of "stock manipulation", so long as the buy back followed all the rules. There can be other irregularities with the buy backs that the SEC can look into, but "stock manipulation will not be one of them. Insider trading would be one of the common "irregularities". Using government tax relief funds for buybacks, incurring debt to fund buy backs and timing buybacks to align with executives selling vested shares, are others. But none of these constitute "stock manipulation" under SEC trading laws.

    Stock buy backs are one of the best ways for  publicly traded companies to return excess profits back to its rightful owners ..... its shareholders.

    muthuk_vanalingamtiredskillsdanoxfastasleepJanNL

  • Judge sanctions Apple for blatantly violating 'Fortnite' App Store order

    davidwdavidw
    gatorguy said:
    davidw said:
    The solution for Apple seem quite simple. If a developer want to have an app in the Apple App Store where there are advertising and links in the app that allows for any IAP payments outside of Apple iTunes, then Apple will charge those developers $1 per app downloaded per month, with a deal for $10 per  app per year.  (or something to that nature). It will be up to the developers if they want to charge their customers for downloading the app. So a developer can weigh in on whether to have a free app where Apple will get a commission or paid for each downloaded app and hope the users makes enough IAP to bring the cost of having such an app, below what they would had paid in commission.

    This way the developers that are happy with the arrangement of having a free app and paying Apple a commission to handle IAP payments (along with refunds and updates) can still do so. And those that don't want to pay Apple a commission on IAP can do so by paying Apple upfront for having an app in the Apple App store from which they are profiting from using Apple IP.

    Isn't Apple already doing something like this in the EU, with downloads from third party app stores?
    Verbatim quote from the court:

    For the reasons set forth herein, the Court FINDS Apple in willful violation of this Court’s 2021 Injunction which issued to restrain and prohibit Apple’s anticompetitive conduct and anticompetitive pricing. Apple’s continued attempts to interfere with competition will not be tolerated...

    Apple’s response to the Injunction strains credulity. After two sets of evidentiary hearings, the truth emerged. Apple, despite knowing its obligations thereunder, thwarted the Injunction’s goals, and continued its anticompetitive conduct solely to maintain its revenue stream.

    Remarkably, Apple believed that this Court would not see through its obvious cover-up (the 2024 evidentiary hearing). To unveil Apple’s actual decision-making process, not the one tailor-made for litigation, the Court ordered production of real-time documents and ultimately held a second set of hearings in 2025.

    To summarize: One, after trial, the Court found that Apple’s 30 percent commission “allowed it to reap supracompetitive operating margins” and was not tied to the value of its intellectual property, and thus, was anticompetitive. Apple’s response: charge a 27 percent commission (again tied to nothing) on off-app purchases, where it had previously charged nothing, and extend the commission for a period of seven days after the consumer linked-out of the app.

    Apple’s goal: maintain its anticompetitive revenue stream.

    Two, the Court had prohibited Apple from denying developers the ability to communicate with, and direct consumers to, other purchasing mechanisms. Apple’s response: impose new barriers and new requirements to increase friction and increase breakage rates with full page “scare” screens, static URLs, and generic statements.

    Apple’s goal: to dissuade customer usage of alternative purchase opportunities and maintain its anticompetitive revenue stream.

    In the end, Apple sought to maintain a revenue stream worth billions in direct defiance of this Court’s Injunction.

    In stark contrast to Apple’s initial in-court testimony, contemporaneous business documents reveal that Apple knew exactly what it was doing and at every turn chose the most anticompetitive option. To hide the truth, Vice-President of Finance, Alex Roman, outright lied under oath. Internally, Phillip Schiller had advocated that Apple comply with the Injunction, but Tim Cook ignored Schiller and instead allowed Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri and his finance team to convince him otherwise. Cook chose poorly.

    The real evidence, detailed herein, more than meets the clear and convincing standard to find a violation. The Court refers the matter to the United States Attorney for the Northern District of California to investigate whether criminal contempt proceedings are appropriate.

    This is an injunction, not a negotiation. There are no do-overs once a party willfully disregards a court order. Time is of the essence. The Court will not tolerate further delays. As previously ordered, Apple will not impede competition. The Court enjoins Apple from implementing its new anticompetitive acts to avoid compliance with the Injunction. Effective immediately Apple will no longer impede developers’ ability to communicate with users nor will they levy or impose a new commission on off-app purchases.


    The TLDR version? 

    "This is an injunction, not a negotiation. There are no do-overs once a party willfully disregards a court order."

    You don't have to shout. It doesn't make your statement any more correct. :)

    Who said that this has to happen immediately? Apple could implement the changes by the end of next year but meanwhile comply with the injunction immediately in the next week.

    Are you saying that the courts can dictate how Apple can run their business? We are not the EU. The courts can only dictate Apple what they can't do when running their business. Apple is not a public utility.  Apple can make changes to their business model in order to adapt to external changes, as they see fit, so long a those change do not violate any existing laws or court orders. The revenue from their commission pays for the 90% of free apps in the Apple App Store. As revenue from their commission decreases due to the changes made to comply with this ruling, Apple is allow to change their business model. The courts can not force Apple to operate their app store at a loss or dictate how much profit they are allow to have. In order for that to happen, the courts have to prove that Apple is a monopoly (under US anti-trust laws) and is abusing that monopoly. We don't go by the BS "gatekeeper" label. 

    But I have to ask this. If the courts find that a 30% commission is considered "supra-competitive operating margins", then what is it when Epic Games charges $10 (20 Fortnite Bucks) for a "cool" virtual outfit that cost no more to make and let the player have, than the virtual outfits the players gets to use for free. That margin got to be over 2X more than Apple 30% commission. And Epic have no competition with their Fortnite Store.

    If this case involved Google instead of Apple, then I can see Google not being able to or having a much harder time, making such changes. Why?  Because the courts determined that Google is a monopoly and that Google is abusing that monopoly.

    neoncatwatto_cobra

  • Apple wants nearly every iPhone 18 sold in the US to come from India

    davidwdavidw
    coolfactor said:
    The technology exists now... Apple should focus on fully automated assembly in "micro-factories" located in each strategic market. As demand goes up and down, so does output. Time for a monumental shift in thinking.

    Whether the technology exist or not is not the problem. The problem is that the hundreds or thousands of parts and assemblies that goes into making an iPhone, will not be made in the same country as where they are assembled. Nearly all the parts will have to be shipped there. And all the parts will incur a tariff cost, when imported into the country where the iPhone will be assembled.

    This is why most electronic devices are assembled in Asia. That's where the majority of the parts for them are made and shipping to any other country in Asia is not a big problem or major cost. The readily availability of all (or most of) the parts, is actually more important to keeping cost down, than the availability of cheap labor.

    Also consider that Apple is not a manufacturer. Apple is not like auto makers. Apple do not own or operate the factories where their devices are assembled, (except maybe for their desktop Macs). In order for Apple to use fully automated factories to assemble their devices in the same country as their markets, companies that Apple contract out to assemble their devices (like Foxconn, Pengatron and Wistron)  have to built and operate the factories there. Apple can help pay for it but it's still up to the Apple contractors to decide if they want to build and operate the "micro-factories". After all, they are the ones that will take the hit, if there's any reduction in production or if there are not enough orders to justify keeping the factory running.
    danoxLoveNotch_n_AirPodsdewmeForumPostwatto_cobra

  • Apple EU anti-competition fine is a relatively modest $570 million to avoid Trump retaliat...

    davidwdavidw
    danox said:
    reroll said:
    Companies must comply with the regulations of the regions in which they operate—no exceptions. Failure to do so results in penalties. In fact, US tariffs have cost Apple significantly more than all the fines the EU has imposed combined.

    To take the wording of the previous post that would make the US more evil, and Trump more wrong. With that reasoning one could wish biblical judgment on the US. But that’s not the US. It’s just Trump&friends.  

    Another ridiculous action by the EU, I do not expect the Dutch company ASML for example or any company in the United States or anywhere for that matter, be required to give up share their research and development for free because some government somewhere says you should for made up competitive reasons, Apple, ASML got where they did through hard work research and development over time. 

    They did not stop anyone else outside their company from pursuing the same results and the same applies to any company that does the actual research and development, it’s not about tariff escalation you have just given the Bumpkins in the White House, the idea that they can do the same thing in reverse to other companies outside the United States require them to share whatever have of value at a whim.
    The US federal government forced AT&T to provide its patents (including for the transistor) for free to other US companies.

    Please inform yourself on why ATT was a monopoly. The US government handed ATT a monopoly because our government wanted everyone in the US to have an affordable telephone from which they could call anyone else in the US. Having a dozen different telephone standards did not fit that goal. Therefore, as a result of being handed a government monopoly, ATT had to allow other telephone companies to use their patents, so that all the telephones made by different companies were compatible with each other. ATT also had to run telephone lines to the least populated rural communities, so they had access to a telephone. Something smaller telephone companies could not afford to do. Eventually, the US government went on to approve ATT buying out all its competition. 

    This is no different than how now of days, we use SEP and FRAND to hand patent holders a monopoly, in exchange for allowing others to use the patents at a minimum cost. So that all mobile infrastructures are standardized and companies can make mobile phones that can communicate with each other on any network, without having to pay an arm and leg to patent holders.

    If the EU handed Apple a monopoly in the EU, then I wouldn't have a problem with the EU Commission forcing Apple to allow others in the EU to use their patents, for free. 
    sphericmigselvwatto_cobra

  • EU antitrust agency may not fine Apple much to avoid tariff war escalation

    davidwdavidw
    This just further exposes the extortion racket that the DMA is. The calculus is now, "How much can we get without it costing us more?"

    The DMA was never written and enacted, to solve any anti-competitive problems the EU was having with the 5 largest US tech companies. The DMA was written and enacted, to have the 5 largest US tech companies solve the age-old problem with Socialism eventually running out of other peoples money.
    nubussconosciutotrustnoone00watto_cobra