On Friday, there was no shortage of selling on Wall Street as the recent rally in equities resulted in significant profit taking among traders and investors.
But while major indices like the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500, and NASDAQ are all deep in red territory, there are a few stocks that continue to climb. And AAPL is one of them.
Shares of Apple, presently trading around $496, are rapidly approaching the psychologically satisfying $500 level.
Even at $500, however, AAPL could still climb dramatically according to leading market watchers who continue to maintain price targets of between $600 and $650 for AAPL.
As a result of Apple’s surge on Wall Street during the last six months, some believe the company will soon pay a dividend to investors. Analyst Shaw Wu with Sterne Agee believes a yield in the 2 percent to 3 percent range would be ideal to satisfy and further entice shareholders and employees. “The reason is that the company’s strong cash flow should be able to fund this (which we estimate could be $75-$80 billion in the next four quarters vs. the $45.3 billion we estimate the company generated in the last four quarters).”
In Apple’s quarterly earnings report last month, executives admitted that they are “actively discussing” options for the $96.7 billion in cash Apple is sitting on.
“We’re actively discussing uses of our cash balance, and have no specifics to share,” Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer said. “In the meantime, we continue to be disciplined with cash, and are not letting it burn a hole in our pockets.”
