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"Apple has bought back $14 billion worth of its own shares in the two weeks after it announced\u00A0earnings for its first fiscal quarter of 2014, which the market responded to rather negatively, company CEO Tim Cook told the Wall Street Journal.\r\n\r\nCook told the WSJ that an 8 percent decline in Apple's shares on the day after it reported its earnings &amp;quot;surprised&amp;quot; the company, and it wanted to be &amp;quot;aggressive&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;opportunistic.&amp;quot; With the latest buyback, Cook reveals that Apple had already repurchased more than $40 billion of its shares over the past 12 months, as\u00A0part of its plan to repurchase $60 billion of its own shares.\r\n\r\nApple's move comes as activist investor Carl Icahn has been pushing for Apple to implement his pretty extreme buyback proposal, saying that based on the company's current circumstances,\u00A0an additional $50 billion share repurchase over the course of fiscal year 2014 seems &amp;quot;more than reasonable.&amp;quot;\r\n\r\nLast month, Icahn revealed\u00A0his purchase of an additional $1 billion worth of Apple\u00A0stock, increasing his holding to $3.6 billion in a bid to motivate the company's board to increase its buyback program.\r\n\r\nInterestingly, Cook also revealed to the WSJ that Apple has bought 21 companies over the past 15 months -- seeking to shed some light on how the company has been investing its cash pile.\r\n\r\n\u27A4 Apple Repurchases $14B of Own Shares in 2 Weeks [Wall Street Journal]\r\n\r\nHeadline image via Spencer Platt/Getty Images"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://thenextweb.com/apple/2014/02/07/apple-buys-back-14-billion-shares-in-the-two-weeks-following-its-fiscal-q1-2014-earnings/>