Apple to buy back $100 billion in stock

BY ANDREW GIOVINAZZI

May 3, 2024

Yo Pit Crazies,

If you missed Licia spear the market with a pitchfork last night, check it out here. If you want to learn to make weekly income buying options, not selling them, check out my Weekly Profits Cycles.

In the old days when a company missed revenue or had declining revenue, the stock went down. I am old enough to remember those days way back when. Mark Sebastian keeps saying Tim Cook needs to go because there is nothing original there. He is right.

The best they can do is 100 billion dollars in buybacks and tout their AI strategy that they don’t have yet. That 100 billy is not going to research and development and not growing the economy. Personally I don’t like it when companies buy back stock. I say keep it in cash for a rainy day. They always buy back stock at terrible prices. Apple Inc (Ticker: AAPL) has a valuable franchise but except for jamming software upgrades they are not doing anything interesting.

The share buyback puts a good floor under AAPL. My chance to buy it in the near future below $150 is near 0. More importantly, an AAPL that stays up is good for the S&P 500.

More certainty out of AAPL is a good thing for short volatility folks.

Let’s see how that will play out today.

Stocks will rally 1% and VIX will drop to 14 or lower today

I closed some profitable SPY calls in Weekly Profits Cycles on the close Thursday so for sure we rally today. I do have a nice passel of VIX puts so that should make some hay in the meantime. The NFP number is the last number that might be remotely market moving but the ADP number came and went this week without a flutter. Inflation is already on the upswing and the market got excited Wednesday but really just wants to rally,

Sub 14 VIX by Friday’s close and then wait 22 days for Nvidia Inc (Ticker: NVDA) earnings. That should kill VIX looking for the next upside catalyst.

To Your Trading Success,

-AG