Sterne Agee Believes Dividend Makes Most Sense for Apple

Sterne Agee has published a research report on Apple AAPL believing that the company's dividend program currently makes the most sense. In the report, Sterne Agee writes, "While we find the timing somewhat curious sending out a notice on a Sunday afternoon PT, we nonetheless believe that the topic will likely be around dividends. As we have said before, we believe paying a dividend makes a lot of sense for both shareholders and employees given the company's high profitability and strong ability to generate free cash flow. The company's net cash position currently stands at $97.6 billion and is growing rapidly quarterly. In fact, we estimate that AAPL will likely generate $75-80 billion in free cash in the next four quarters vs. the $45.3 billion we estimate the company generated in the previous four quarters." Sterne Agee maintains its Buy rating and $620 price target on Apple, which closed Friday at $585.57.