brucemc

deminsd said:

What a biased article.  4.6% market share is worth celebrating?  16M out of 345M sold (by far the majority is Android) is good? 

The way I see the numbers, ALL of Apple iPhones sales made up only 12.2% of total phones sold.  Too bad the data doesn't show the breakdown of the other 84.6%.  How much of that is Samsung?  

I like my iPhone but I'd never buy a X.  

For you long term financial health, make sure you have a strong advisor...

ascii said:

Is that good or bad? Buffett buys sensible companies. But as a tech nerd I want innovative companies even if they don't balance the books! I guess it's good if you're an investor and bad if you're a fan.

So Apple has no innovation again?  Are you sure you can defend that?

SpamSandwich said:

badmonk said:

Thanks DED for the spirited defense of the buybacks!  I find it funny that the haters disparage the buybacks.  It is up their with notch-hate, macpro-hate, no-headphone-jack-hate, siri-hate and my all time favorite home-pod-hate which generates even more controversy than a trump tweet.

The buybacks at current elevated stock levels make less sense than ever. Apple should continue to provide value to investors by growing the company. A buyback amounts to an accounting trick. And I’m thankful that the current administration, not the previous one, had the wisdom to make repatriating overseas funds a reality. 

Let's try this one more time for you.

- Corporations are "owned" by the shareholders.  They are not owned by the US gov't, nor (generally) by whiny people on Internet forums, analysts, or the tech media.
- When a company makes more cash than their business needs (accounting for R&D, growth, new products, M&A, etc), then that is "free cash flow".  The question is what to do with this.  A company could look at taking on more organic growth (increasing R&D in order to deliver new products), purchase other companies to grow business, or return the cash to the owners of the company - the shareholders.
- Having too much excess cash on the balance sheet (e.g. just keeping it) is considered a liability for a company (could be wasted in future by SpamSandwich and thus its future value is less than present).

What is unique about Apple is that they are generating SO MUCH FREE CASH, that they cannot use it all in while "PRUDENTLY / EFFICIENTLY" running their business.  Apple's whole corporate DNA is about focusing on a few "great ideas".  You can only spend so much on those.  It takes time, not just money, to bring new products to market.  Just starting a whole bunch of side projects "because we have the money" is how companies lose focus and destroy their long term value.

So Apple has given back to the shareholders - over $275B USD in the last 6 years it would seem.  If Apple had not done this, their net cash balance would be over $400B, just sitting on the books.  Let it grow too large, and some hedge fund could (try anyways) to raise money to buy out Apple, since with so much cash it would help with the debt load to buy them, and the cash is not reflected well in the share price.  Then said hedge fund would milk the company for all it was worth and that would be it.

While share buybacks at most other companies has been considered controversial, as it is perceived as a means to "goose" the share price in the short term (while siphoning off from investment in business, or accruing large debt), that is not why Apple is doing it.  It is the most efficient means for them to return the cash to the shareholders by having each remaining share (those who don't want to sell) have a larger ownership stake in the company.  

anantksundaram said:

Oh yeah, cue "the notch was so obvious" schnooks...

But it is!  And that size and shape of the notch, which just happens to look like the iPhoneX notch, is the only size that is possible to work!

...so now you think Apple should patent a notch design ...

/s

macxpress said:

jasenj1 said:

After pushing the price down leading up to the earnings report, analysts now pumping AAPL so they and their clients can sell.

The game is rigged. Learn to play along. I bought a few shares at $165ish. Wish I'd been able to buy more.

I bet if Apple were a private company there wouldn't be anywhere near the crap we hear every day. I do wish Apple were private. 

Not sure what company / group of investors is going to pony ~$1 Trillion to take them private though (this is attaching slightly under a 15% premium on current stock price).