Today, a couple of tweets by investor Carl Icahn made Apple’s stock (AAPL) surge, pushing the share price north of $493 which had opened at $470. The billionaire said that he has a large stake in Apple and has discussed a larger buyback with Apple CEO Tim Cook today. According to FastCompany, his Tweets alone sent the shares up more than 2% which, for Apple, is a pretty significant jump.
While Icahn’s bullishness is based partly on the idea of a “larger buyback”, it must be noted that that Apple already has a program to return $100 billion to shareholders by the end of 2015.
We currently have a large position in APPLE. We believe the company to be extremely undervalued. Spoke to Tim Cook today. More to come.
— Carl Icahn (@Carl_C_Icahn) August 13, 2013
Had a nice conversation with Tim Cook today. Discussed my opinion that a larger buyback should be done now. We plan to speak again shortly.
— Carl Icahn (@Carl_C_Icahn) August 13, 2013
The impact of Icahn’s words was immediately picked up by the Twitterverse. Here’s a tweet from CNBC showing Apple’s pretty much expected response:
Apple:"We appreciate the interest and investment of all our shareholders. Tim [Cook] had a very positive conversation with Mr. Icahn today."
— CNBC (@CNBC) August 13, 2013
Sarah Frier from Bloomberg tweeted the following:
Icahn's stake in Apple said to be more than $1 billion, with Icahn projecting shares will rise above $600, via @BloombergNews
— Sarah Frier (@sarahfrier) August 13, 2013
Apple’s stock is expected to rise when it unveils the next iPhone at a media event on September 10.
