Activist investor Carl Icahn keeps pounding away at Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL). He just tweeted a short time ago that he snapped up $500 million worth of additional shares of the company. He said it seems like he’s keeping pace with the company’s share buybacks but that he hopes the company speeds up and beats him. Here’s his full tweet:
Just bought $500 mln more $AAPL shares. My buying seems to be going neck-and-neck with Apple’s buyback program, but hope they win that race.
— Carl Icahn (@Carl_C_Icahn) January 28, 2014
Carl Icahn keeps pushing Apple
Icahn’s battle with Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has been going on for months. His non-binding shareholder proposal for an additional $50 billion share buyback goes up for a vote on Apple’s proxy at the annual shareholders’ meeting next month, but it’s unclear whether he expects to win that. Of course Apple isn’t forced to comply even if he does win, but it looks like Icahn is going to continue his PR campaign until he can bully Apple into giving him what he wants.
Every time he makes a move in Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), Icahn tweets about it. He bought $500 million worth of additional shares just last week, and it seems like he decided to take advantage of the dip in Apple stock after the company’s earnings report last night.
Is it a good idea to buy Apple on the dip?
In spite of Carl Icahn’s tweet, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) stock remains nearly 8% down because the company didn’t ship as many iPhones as investors were hoping for during the December quarter. So is it a good idea to snap up shares of Apple when they experience a weakness like we’ve seen today? Schaeffer’s Investment Research Strategist Ryan Detrick (writing on Tumblr) said history suggests Icahn’s comes at an excellent time.
He looked back all the way to 2008 and found that shares of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) declined more than 5% a total of 12 times, including today. He said the company has also noted “some really strong bounces intraday from the initial gap.” Of course these bounces don’t take into account news like Carl Icahn’s tweet about his increased position in Apple. Historically, each of his tweets has added billions of dollars to Apple’s market capitalization.
According to Detrick’s research, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) shares rise “after the initial gap the rest of the day 9 out of 11 times.” He said the average is more than 2%, although that includes a major 12% drop from September 2008.
Looking at two weeks after earnings he said Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) shares are higher 64% of the time. In fact, he said this has happened the last seven times in a row and that some of the returns “were very strong.”
