The Market Expects Larger/Special Dividend from Apple (AAPL), Poll Shows
On the front page of Yahoo! Finance is a poll which asks: "Apple is sitting on $137 billion in cash. What should the company do with it?"
Largely, but not by a landslide, the number one answer was "Increase or issue a special dividend." That answer garnered 11,583 votes, or 36 percent of the total. Coming in second place was "Buy back stock" with 8,652 votes, or 27 percent.
Out of all the answers, those weren't the most surprising. The most startling data point was the fourth answer: "Nothing." About 5,430 people voted for this, or 17 percent of the total.
Those answers are not necessarily from investors and are shouldn't be considered proof of what Apple should do with its "Scrooge McDuck vault"-sized cash pile, but gives interesting insight as to what the market thinks. Clearly investment-minded individuals are more likely to wander onto the Yahoo! Finance homepage.
Shares of Apple are down about 1.8 percent Tuesday.