$苹果 (AAPL.US)$This is the progress on getting $AAPL down to ...

$苹果(AAPL.US)$This is the progress on getting $AAPL down to neutral net cash - it's slow going because even though in 2019 Apple returned $83.9bn to shareholders (incl $67bn buybacks) it's still generating huge profits. So means that net cash only got reduced $24.8bn in FY2019 vs $30.6bn in FY2018. At this rate Apple won't be able to get to cash neutral until say end FY 2023. And in this period of course the company will likely be retiring another 20-25% of its sharecount! So what happens when cash gets to neutral? Maybe the bears hope that buybacks are no longer there to 'save' the stock price. Well think again, by 2024 annual cash from operations will be $80-90bn so Apple can continue returning cash at this prodigious rate. You really can't be short these kind of dynamics.