Investors have a serious case of Icahn fatigue
Activist investor Carl Icahn has yet again had a go at pumping up the value of Apple stock.
Icahn has become fond of Twitter as a platform, but 66 messages in and the attention of market watchers has started to wear thin.
Three consecutive updates failed to make much of a dent in the value of Apple shares.
Since tweeting about our large position in $AAPL on Aug 13, when the stock was 468 per share, we’ve kept buying shares of this ‘no brainer.’
— Carl Icahn (@Carl_C_Icahn) January 22, 2014
Having purchased $500 million more $AAPL shares in the last two weeks, our investment has crossed the $3 billion mark yesterday.
— Carl Icahn (@Carl_C_Icahn) January 22, 2014
We feel $APPL board is doing great disservice to shareholders by not having markedly increased its buyback. In-depth letter to follow soon.
— Carl Icahn (@Carl_C_Icahn) January 22, 2014
When Icahn first tweeted about the tech giant last August, the share movement was much more pronounced.
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
While giving far fewer specifics and far fewer characters to the issue, Icahn's first comments added $17bn (£10.3bn) to the value of Apple's stock, with shares closing 4.75 per cent higher that day.
The jump left the shares at $489.57 in August, their highest level since January. Today's comments have seen Apple shares tick slightly higher, from just under $554 to a fraction above $556.
More frequent updates are having less significant effects.
When once Icahn could push the value of the stock up by over $20, now he's only been able to see shares up by about $2.