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Daniel Sparks, The Motley Fool
Mon, May 4, 2026 astatine 6:28 AM CDT 5 min read
Tech elephantine Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) announced stellar fiscal second-quarter results past week. But there's 1 constituent of the study -- beyond the headlines astir beardown iPhone income and robust guidance -- worthy a person look. Last week, alongside its fiscal second-quarter results, the iPhone shaper said its committee authorized an further $100 cardinal successful stock repurchases connected apical of the remaining equilibrium from its existing authorization. Additionally, the committee besides raised the dividend by 4%.
Put different way, the company's superior instrumentality programme is continuing.
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The determination stands successful crisp opposition to what is happening crossed overmuch of large tech close now, wherever rivals are committing hundreds of billions of dollars to AI infrastructure. Apple is taking a antithetic path: staying disciplined with its spending connected superior expenditures portion returning immense sums to shareholders.
A antithetic benignant of AI play
While Amazon expects 2026 superior expenditures of astir $200 billion, Alphabet is guiding to $180 cardinal to $190 billion, and Meta Platforms anticipates $125 cardinal to $145 cardinal -- each mostly tied to AI -- Apple's spending representation looks modest. Through the archetypal fractional of fiscal 2026, Apple's superior expenditures totaled lone astir $4.3 billion. Annualized, that's a rounding mistake for a institution of its size.
Yet Apple isn't ignoring AI. Its A19 and A19 Pro chips see neural accelerators built for AI workloads, and Apple Intelligence is present woven crossed the company's merchandise lineup. The tech elephantine has besides leaned into a concern with Alphabet to powerfulness an upcoming mentation of Siri with Gemini. But Apple's stake connected AI is happening astatine the borderline -- connected the instrumentality itself -- alternatively than done monolithic information halfway buildouts -- a little capital-intensive approach.
The fiscal effect of that subject is striking. Apple generated much than $82 cardinal successful operating currency travel during the archetypal fractional of fiscal 2026. Of that, conscionable $4.3 cardinal went toward superior expenditures. The remainder is disposable for the concern and shareholders -- and Apple has been returning a meaningful magnitude of it. In the archetypal six months of fiscal 2026, the institution returned astir $45 cardinal to investors done dividends and stock buybacks.
Strong fundamentals enactment the superior returns
Of course, superior returns lone enactment if the underlying concern holds up. And fiscal Q2 made it wide that Apple's concern is firing connected each cylinders.
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