Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) is zeroing in again on a new all-time high share price. The stock topped out at $705 a share in September 2012. On a split-adjusted basis that means the shares need to reach $100.72 to top the current mark.
From that peak the company’s stock slid to a two-year low of around $390 a share in April of 2013 before starting to climb again in late June to a non-split adjusted high of around $694 on Monday afternoon.
In August of 2012, Apple resumed paying a dividend at a pre-split level of $2.65 a share. That was increased to $3.05 per share in May of 2013 and increased again to $3.29 in April 2014, where it now stands at a split-adjusted $0.47 a share. Since resuming payments, the company has paid about $21.5 billion in dividends.
On top of that, Apple has committed to repurchasing $90 billion of its common stock by 2016. So far it has paid out $53 billion of that amount.
Even with all the dividends and buybacks, Apple’s cash and short-term investments total more than $40 billion. Since August of 2012, Apple has distributed nearly $75 billion to stockholders and still sits on a very large pile of cash. Horace Dediu figures that if the company had not resumed paying dividends, had not repurchased shares and had not borrowed $29 billion to avoid repatriating cash at a stiff tax penalty, Apple’s cash pile would be $210 billion today.
At noon on Tuesday, Apple’s shares hit $100, making the daily range $99.32 to $100.00. The consensus price target at Thomson Reuters is now $106.26, with the high target at $139.00. The stock’s split-adjusted 52-week low is $63.89.
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