> dividends signal to the market that you have no better way to spend your money than just giving it back to investors to spend elsewhere
this is exactly what they're trying to signal because its true. what's wrong with that? they've been extremely profitable while not spending the $45 billion they're giving back to shareholders, and they can continue to be profitable without it.
> In reality Apple could probably just become a private company by buying back most/all the public shares
no it couldn't. it's market cap is 550B. it's cash reserve is 100B.
more generally, a company cannot buy itself because the shareholders actually own the cash the company holds. generally, if a company has $X dollars of cash reserves, then the market cap on that company would be > $X.
this is exactly what they're trying to signal because its true. what's wrong with that? they've been extremely profitable while not spending the $45 billion they're giving back to shareholders, and they can continue to be profitable without it.
> In reality Apple could probably just become a private company by buying back most/all the public shares
no it couldn't. it's market cap is 550B. it's cash reserve is 100B.
more generally, a company cannot buy itself because the shareholders actually own the cash the company holds. generally, if a company has $X dollars of cash reserves, then the market cap on that company would be > $X.
edit: a factor of 10