Apple CEO Tim Cook
NEW YORK -- Apple's stock closed above $600 for the first time Monday, the same day the company announced plans to reward shareholders with a dividend and a share buyback program.
The stock rallied in the final minutes of trading to close at $601.10, an increase of $15.53, or 2.7%.
Apple is the world's most valuable company, with a market capitalization of about $560 billion. The company has been successful with what it calls "post-PC" products -- smartphones and tablet computers that perform tasks people used to do on personal computers. In the U.S. and other industrialized markets, there's evidence consumers have delayed replacing PCs, hurting manufacturers such as Dell and Hewlett-Packard.
Apple has a healthy cash balance because of its success with those products. It had $97.6 billion in cash and securities at the end of 2011. Apple said Monday that it will pay a quarterly dividend of $2.65 per share, starting in its fiscal fourth quarter, which begins July 1. The company also said it plans to buy back up to $10 billion in stock over three years starting Sept. 30.
The third version of the iPad went on sale Friday in the U.S. and nine other countries. Some customers camped outside stores overnight to be among the first to buy one. Upgrades in the new version include a sharper screen and a faster processor. Apple said late Monday that it had sold 3 million of the new iPads, which it said was the strongest iPad launch to date.
There were 15.4 million iPads shipped in Apple's most recent quarter, which included the critical holiday season.
Apple CEO Tim Cook has said he thinks purchases of tablet computers such as the iPad will eventually surpass those of personal computers.
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