Both a buyback and dividends can be exploited by speculators: they can just buy the stock beforehand and sell it at a higher price or after collecting dividends. A wise thing would be to distribute cash to long-term owners based on how many months and years each has owned the stock multiplied by the number of stocks owned. However, I don't think that's possible in the current scheme. You would need different sets of stock for different dividends and you don't necessarily have records of the cumulate ownership of individual owners.
Apple would have to issue a preferred stock for that. The structure you suggest would not go over well with the investing public because of the dilution that would be involved. Also, this scheme is much more convoluted than a straight up preferred or dividend. Too much like a debt product; stock investors don't like doing as much work as bond investors.
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