Company announced a few minutes ago that they will have a confernece call in the morning....9 am EST....to discuss the use of the cash hoard of some nearly $100 billion. Rumors encompass everything from a one time divy, to a regular dividend, to a buy back, to a fairly substabtial acquisition....like DIS. Stock has run $140 since the last earnings report on all sorts of buying from folks who think the dividend is imminent.

AAPL said they will not talk about any other items....guidance, or i-pad sales, etc. during the call.

Futures popped 1.50 on the announcement, which is probably priced into the shares already, and then settled right back down to be lower by 40 cents on the session.

AAPL price in the morning? Well, the high last week was 601 1/2 or so in a frenzy just prior to the opening one day. My guess is we see that level or more early, and it wouldn't surprise me, particularly if this is a regular quaterly dividend, that the shares end up closing quite a bit lower on the day.

Buy the mystery; sell the history? But who knows with this stock?

Full disclosure: I am short coming in.

Guessing small one time divvy...nothing to write home about.

New nets at Foxconn?

Sell da news. This could cause the market to shart itself hard tomorrow.

Another speculation-- iPad sales are bombing and they need to announce something to take people's eyes off it before someone gets hard data.

iPads already are lower margin than iPhones. The new iPad is even lower margin bcos it has a more hi-res screen, faster processor and 70% larger battery to keep up with the screen and LTE stuff, while selling for iPad2 prices.

Not that it will be a big dent, but a dent nonetheless. Probably of the order of 2-5% of hit in margins I would guess.

Bicycle,

I believe this might be true. At local verizon store friday, day of ipad3 release. at 8PM, they had only sold 1, and had 5 in stock.

Interesting theory Bicycle. Very interesting...I do believe sales are weak. There should be no stock in stores on the first weekend of release.

There just wasn't enough of an upgrade imo - even the memory is basically the same. Capabilities too. This might be their first big misstep since Jobs' 'departure'. I'm not sure he would have let this one out there. There's just no 'wow' factor, only a modest upgrade and I think people are completely done with the annual upgrade ritual.

Sam's Club was tweeting they had stock Friday evening....

Apple is one of those stocks that you just KNOW is going to go at some point.

since we're all speculating in breaking news....i was looking at the figures, and most of their 'cash' is actually in long term securities - if they sell these securities, the market breaks itself and their conference call marks the top of the market

By "long term securities", does that mean that they predate the abysmally low rates of the recent past and that they are earning a decent return, or are they invested at today's rates? Is there any way to tell from what they make public?

With all the Hedge and mutual funds that have tons of AAPL now, a sharp move down would be a major impact.

Up $20 already this morning.

BTW...more than one half of this hoarde is held overseas and subject to 35% tax hit if they repatriate it. Unlikely to be willing to take that hit.

8:27...Shares suspended...Twitter Acquisition rumored???

Someone sold a ton of stock from 607 down to 599 or so. Funny how someone always 'seems to know'.

Dividend at $2.65, Stock buy back starting July 1......

So...they spend $12.5 Billion or so right off the bat...if my math is correct.

Apple Press Release:

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20....

Partial quote:

Quote:

Subject to declaration by the Board of Directors, the Company plans to initiate a quarterly dividend of $2.65 per share sometime in the fourth quarter of its fiscal 2012, which begins on July 1, 2012.

Additionally, the Company’s Board of Directors has authorized a $10 billion share repurchase program commencing in the Company’s fiscal 2013, which begins on September 30, 2012. The repurchase program is expected to be executed over three years, with the primary objective of neutralizing the impact of dilution from future employee equity grants and employee stock purchase programs.

How dumb. Short

Now down....

They plan to bay back stock at an all time high price?

Why buy back stock when your share price is going parabolic?

Because iDouche sales over the weekend were soft.

Up or down? Short today at open via weeklies