-- Bulls hoping the Nasdaq 100’s best day since August is the start of a meaningful rebound may be about to get a boost from a long-standing ally: tech companies themselves.Led by the likes of Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp., Big Tech has for years been among the most extravagant spenders on their own stock, often to reduce dilution as new shares issued for compensation hit the market.
“The recovery from the profit recession that we saw in 2022 and early 2023 should pave the way to better free cash flow,” said Angelo Zino, a research analyst at CFRA, adding that this would herald a “greater emphases on buybacks.” “This kind of environment suggests that companies buying back their stock will outperform,” said Jim Polk, head of equity investments at Homestead Advisers. “If you’re looking for growth, you’d rather they not use the capital on a dividend.”
Apple Inc. held talks with DuckDuckGo to replace Alphabet Inc.’s Google as the default search engine for the private mode on Apple’s Safari browser, but ultimately rejected the idea. Taiwan will investigate whether Taiwanese firms helping Huawei Technologies Co. with chipmaking plants in China violated US sanctions, ramping up scrutiny of a company at the heart of Washington-Beijing tensions over technology.Ideally, you should have multiple income sources by the time you retire to remove the strain on government pensions. But you should still avoid a major CPP mistake.