Apple Inc (AAPL)

[VERYLONGSTOPPEDDRINKINGTHEKOOLAID]

Here's a very bullish thought on AAPL:

....Apple Shareholder Meeting Was a Snooze, But Still Bullish for Investors!
2/24/2012

"Shareholder meetings are traditionally staid affairs held in order to run through a checklist of official corporate business. Judging by what emerged from Apple's (AAPL) widely-watched gathering yesterday, the company has at long last become "traditional."

There was no news of a dividend, beyond confirmation that it's under consideration along with a possible share buyback plan. There were no new products or targets set. New Apple CEO Tim Cook simply ticked through the stats of the year prior, answered some questions, and gave into minor demands from a large institutional investor. The meeting was, in a word, normal.

According to Jon Najarian, co-founder of TradeMonster.com, mundane should have been expected. Najarian neatly sums up what shareholders learned from Apple yesterday.

"Seems to me they are considering buybacks or dividends," he says with an appropriate shrug.

But there are two problems for those expecting or wanting Apple to start tossing around dividends. First, as Najarian notes, a great deal of Apple's famously huge $100 billion cash hoard is held overseas. The process of pulling that loot out of faster growing markets, bringing it back to the States at onerous tax rates then paying it out to shareholders isn't in anyone's best interest. That limits the potential size of money at play to a still astronomical $60 billion or so, but changes the picture slightly.


Yield-hungry Apple holders should also take note of what happened when Microsoft (MSFT) last decade when they issued a $3 dividend. As it turned out, nothing good. The company ended up spending over $30 billion only to see the stock dramatically under-perform for years. It was an expensive lesson for Mr. Softie and its shareholders.

In lieu of product news or announcements of financial maneuvering, Najarian offers a bullish interpretation of the charts. Where many see Apple's 5-day $50 billion market cap move, concluding in a February 15th explosion to all-time highs on almost 4x average daily volume as a blow-off top, Najarian has a more bullish take.

Of the 55 million shares traded on the 15th, Najarian notes that 40 million traded hands in the morning, running the stock from $506 a share, to an all-time high above $526. The selling in the afternoon came on much lighter volume as the stock shed 5.4%. But in the aftermath, the stock didn't follow through to the downside as bears would have expected.

In other words, what looks like a classic top at first glance is actually a quite bullish, or at least "refreshing" day that burned off good deal of selling pressure.Add it all up and you get an ambiguously bullish picture between now and whenever it is Apple intends on doing something fundamentally noteworthy...."