Billionaire Investor Carl Icahn Made Apple Shares Surge With A Tweet
Apple stock has taken a nose-dive since closing at above $700 almost a year ago, but shares saw a nice lift today on some tweets of investor sentiment.
Billionaire investor Carl Icahn tweeted earlier today that he believed the Cupertino, Calif.-based company is “extremely undervalued,” citing a conversation he had with Apple CEO Tim Cook.
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
Icahn’s bullishness is based partly on the idea of a “larger buyback.” But it’s worth noting that Apple already has a program to return $100 billion to shareholders by the end of 2015.
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 pair of tweets led to an immediate spike, eventually pushing the stock, which opened at $470.94 north of $493, as of this writing.
The Twitterverse quickly took note of the impact of Icahn’s words. Miguel Rios, who manages analytics for Twitter, tweeted the following image:
Twitter. pic.twitter.com/ghxt0QvFQz
— Miguel Rios ???????? (@miguelrios) August 13, 2013
Anthony De Rosa, editor-in-chief of Circa and former social media editor at Reuters, noted the formula for this jump:
1) Be an influential investor 2) Buy a large stake in stock 3) Tweet about the purchase 4) Profit
— Anthony De Rosa ???? (@Anthony) August 13, 2013
Icahn’s statement comes as a stark contrast to Oracle CEO Larry Ellison’s assessment of Apple earlier today. In an interview broadcast on CBS This Morning, the third richest man in America questioned the brightness of Apple’s future without Steve Jobs.