CNBC<\/a> reports that Apple’s sales and earnings over the past 4 years are essentially flat. The only metric that has improved is earnings per share (EPS) because of stock buybacks. Shares in issue have shrunk by 20.7%, from 5.8 to 4.6 billion.<\/p>\n![\"Apple](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.incrediblecharts.com\/images\/2018\/applemetricssantoli.png?w=525&ssl=1\")
<\/p>\n
Let’s break this down.<\/p>\n
Earnings per share grew by an average 5.7% over the past 4 years, of which 0.2% was from actual growth and 5.5% from buybacks. Apple spent $170 billion on stock buybacks in the 4 years to September 2018 at an average of $150.85 per share.<\/p>\n
![\"Apple](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.incrediblecharts.com\/images\/2018\/2019-08-01-aapl-buybacks.png?w=525&ssl=1\")
<\/p>\n
In FY18 buybacks totaled $72.7 billion, or 7.5% of current market cap ($965.4 bn), well above its earnings of $59.5 bn. Apple is distributing capital to stockholders by way of buybacks.<\/p>\n
FY19 estimated earnings yield is 5.4% and dividend yield is 1.4%, leaving retained earnings are 4.0%. Far less than the buyback yield. The company has heaps of cash and can basically keep doing this for a long, long time. But it erodes shareholder value.<\/p>\n
Total return investors can expect, if they buy at the current price of $213.04,\u00a0 is 5.6% (5.4% earnings yield and 0.2% actual growth). That is all that Apple will earn on the money invested into buybacks. An admission that the company is standing still, powerless to inject new growth.<\/p>\n
A PE ratio of 17.9 appears modest but it isn’t if you only have 0.2% growth. That amounts to a PEG ratio of a staggering 90 times growth!<\/p>\n
Bottom Line<\/h2>\n
Apple is no longer a growth company. Earnings are shrinking in real terms and the only way the company can maintain the illusion of growth is by buying back stock at exorbitant prices.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Apple (AAPL) is a notable omission in my international model portfolio. Here is one of the reasons. Michael Santoli at CNBC reports that Apple’s sales and earnings over the past 4 years are essentially flat. The only metric that has improved is earnings per share (EPS) because of stock buybacks. Shares in issue have shrunk … <\/p>\n
Continue reading “Apple Inc. (AAPL) – window dressing with buybacks”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3803],"tags":[107,4002,3249],"class_list":["post-18597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international-growth","tag-aapl","tag-apple-inc","tag-stock-buybacks"],"yoast_head":"\nApple Inc. (AAPL) - window dressing with buybacks - the patient investor<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Apple Inc. 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He founded PVT Capital (AFSL No. 546090) in May 2023, which offers investment strategy and advice to wholesale clients.","sameAs":["https:\/\/facebook.com\/people\/The-Patient-Investor\/61572934660810\/","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/colin_thepatientinvestor","https:\/\/au.linkedin.com\/in\/colintwiggs"],"url":"https:\/\/thepatientinvestor.com\/index.php\/author\/investor\/"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9tQ4n-4PX","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":19788,"url":"https:\/\/thepatientinvestor.com\/index.php\/2020\/02\/14\/a-worm-in-the-apple\/","url_meta":{"origin":18597,"position":0},"title":"A worm in the Apple","author":"Colin Twiggs","date":"February 14, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Apple Inc (AAPL) enjoyed stellar growth over the past 12 months, jumping more than 50%. But is that due to solid operating performance or window-dressing, with almost $140 billion of stock buybacks in the last two years? Free cash flow \u2014 operating cash flow less stock compensation and investment in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Stock Markets"","block_context":{"text":"Stock Markets","link":"https:\/\/thepatientinvestor.com\/index.php\/category\/stock-markets\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":20478,"url":"https:\/\/thepatientinvestor.com\/index.php\/2020\/05\/07\/apple-inc-aapl-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":18597,"position":1},"title":"Apple Inc (AAPL)","author":"Colin Twiggs","date":"May 7, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Stock: Apple Inc Exchange: NASDAQ Symbol: AAPL Date: 7-May-20 Latest price: $300.63 Market Cap: $1.3 Tn Fair Value: $181.52 Forward P\/E: 25.06 FV Payback (Years): 11 Forward Dividend Yield: 1.10% Debt\/FCF: 2.1 Financial Y\/E: 28-Sep-20 Rating: HOLD Sector: Technology Industry: Consumer Electronics Investment Theme: LT Growth Structural Trends: Growth of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "International Growth"","block_context":{"text":"International Growth","link":"https:\/\/thepatientinvestor.com\/index.php\/category\/investment-allocation\/international-growth\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4792,"url":"https:\/\/thepatientinvestor.com\/index.php\/2012\/07\/08\/sp-indices-sp-500-stock-buybacks-decrease-for-first-time-since-q2-2009\/","url_meta":{"origin":18597,"position":2},"title":"S&P 500 dividend yields signal oversold?","author":"Colin Twiggs","date":"July 8, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Historically the S&P 500 was considered overbought -- and ripe for a bear market -- when the dividend yield dropped below 3 percent. A surge in share buybacks in the past two decades, however, disrupted this relationship, with the dividend yield falling close to 1.0 percent in the Dotcom era.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Earnings & Dividends"","block_context":{"text":"Earnings & Dividends","link":"https:\/\/thepatientinvestor.com\/index.php\/category\/investing\/earnings-dividends\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":17503,"url":"https:\/\/thepatientinvestor.com\/index.php\/2018\/11\/29\/mastercard-ma\/","url_meta":{"origin":18597,"position":3},"title":"Mastercard (MA)","author":"Colin Twiggs","date":"November 29, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Stock: Mastercard Inc. Symbol: MA Exchange: NYSE Financial Year-end: 31 December Latest price: $202.28 Market cap: $208.9 billion Date: November 28, 2018 We have updated the Valuation section to facilitate comparison with Visa. Sector: Financial Services Industry: Payment Services Investment Theme: Long-term Growth Structural Trends: Growth of electronic payments and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "International Growth"","block_context":{"text":"International Growth","link":"https:\/\/thepatientinvestor.com\/index.php\/category\/investment-allocation\/international-growth\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":17267,"url":"https:\/\/thepatientinvestor.com\/index.php\/2018\/11\/02\/mastercard-inc-ma\/","url_meta":{"origin":18597,"position":4},"title":"Mastercard Inc. (MA)","author":"Colin Twiggs","date":"November 2, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Stock: Mastercard Inc. Symbol: MA Exchange: NYSE Financial Year-end: 31 December Latest price: $199.71 Market cap: $206 billion Date: November 1, 2018 Sector: Financial Services Industry: Payment Services Investment Theme: Long-term Growth Structural Trends: Growth of electronic payments and online services. Financial Performance Revenue Revenue growth has averaged 16.4% per\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "International Growth"","block_context":{"text":"International Growth","link":"https:\/\/thepatientinvestor.com\/index.php\/category\/investment-allocation\/international-growth\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":18555,"url":"https:\/\/thepatientinvestor.com\/index.php\/2019\/07\/20\/buybacks-are-hurting-growth\/","url_meta":{"origin":18597,"position":5},"title":"Buybacks are hurting growth","author":"Colin Twiggs","date":"July 20, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Preliminary Q1 results from S&P Dow Jones Indices show S&P 500 dividends and buybacks continue to exceed reported earnings in the first quarter of the current year. While this could be a spill-over of offshore funds repatriated as a result of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, companies have\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Stock Markets"","block_context":{"text":"Stock Markets","link":"https:\/\/thepatientinvestor.com\/index.php\/category\/stock-markets\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepatientinvestor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepatientinvestor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepatientinvestor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepatientinvestor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepatientinvestor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18597"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thepatientinvestor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18602,"href":"https:\/\/thepatientinvestor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18597\/revisions\/18602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepatientinvestor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepatientinvestor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepatientinvestor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}