By Alex Eule  |  Tuesday, May 1

May's Mixed Start Every year, investors debate whether it's wise to follow the old maxim to sell in May, given the perceived summer weakness for stocks. This first day of May trading certainly didn't do anything to put the question to rest. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 64 points, or 0.3% while the S&P 500 managed to gain 0.3%. Meanwhile, a tech rebound powered the Nasdaq Composite, which rose 0.9% on the day. While the Dow and S&P are still both negative for the year, the Nasdaq is up 3.3%.

There was no compelling narrative for the mixed day in stocks. The White House is still mulling trade decisions, and U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told attendees at the Milken Institute Global Conference that any trade-related pain would be worthwhile in the long run. My colleague Reshma Kapadia covered the event from Beverly Hills, Calif.

Investors got another day of relatively strong earnings, and tonight Apple relieved some fears with its own better-than-expected quarterly report. Apple shares rose 3.5% in after hours trading.

But corporate profits could be trumped by macro events tomorrow, when Federal Reserve policy makers issue their latest statement following their May meeting. Investors aren't expecting another rate hike, but tomorrow's policy statement could provide additional clarity on the pace of increases and whether we're likely to get two or three more rate hikes in 2018.   

DJIA: -0.27% to 24,099.05
S&P 500: +0.25% to 2654.80
Nasdaq: +0.91% to 7130.70

The Hot Stock: IPG Photonics +9.5%
The Biggest Loser: Tapestry -11.7%

Best Sector: Technology +1.3%
Worst Sector: Consumer Staples -0.9%

Zuckerberg On the Record

Shortly after delivering the keynote address at Facebook's developer conference today, CEO Mark Zuckerberg sat down with a small group of news executives to talk about the the state and future of the news business. My colleague Katherine Bell, Barron's editor-in-chief, attended the event in Menlo Park, Calif.  

The OTR Summit, short for off-the-record, actually included an on-the-record discussion with Zuckerberg tonight. Katherine filed a short report, after asking the Facebook chief whether he remained comfortable with the company's all-advertising business model. (Ads were 98% of Facebook revenue last year.)

Here are some highlight's from Zuckerberg's answer: 

• "In our case, I think it's okay. There are different ways to monetize activity. Take, for example, payments...So we're working on payments in Messenger. We're working on it in WhatsApp. But we're going to offer them at cost. Part of the reason why I think ads are really effective in an auction context is because they guarantee that everyone can get the lowest price for what they're trying to do."
• "We are going to do things like payments, we're just not going to try to make money there. We're not going to lose money....We will charge whatever it costs to do that, but that’s not where it makes sense to try to have businesses pay us. We should offer that into the system to make the system more valuable for businesses. And then whatever value that we create, some portion of that will come back to us through our services being more valuable to businesses, so it’s now worth it for them to bid more in the ad system."

Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg have hinted at the possibility of Facebook users paying for some version of Facebook in the future, but, interestingly, Zuckerberg didn't address that possibility in answering Katherine's question.

Apple's Many Billions 

Even as Apple's cash pile grew early in its iPhone days, Steve Jobs avoided buyback and dividends. But in 2012, shortly after Jobs' death and with Apple's cash hoard still growing, Apple instituted both a buyback and a dividend. The total came to $45 billion over three years, including $10 billion on the buyback, which was meant to last for three years.

Since then, Apply hasn't been shy about returning cash to shareholders. Since the capital return program started, Apple has bought back a total of $200 billion in stock and paid out another $67 billion worth of dividends. Amazingly, until the latest quarter, Apple's cash hoard still continued to grow; its net cash (cash minus debt) peaked at $163 billion at the end of 2017. 

By the end of March, Apple's cash pile had fallen to $145 billion. As Barron's Tiernan Ray wrote tonight, Apple is now committed to bringing its net cash to "near zero." That will mean more buybacks are necessary. In its fiscal second-quarter earnings report this afternoon, Apple said it would be using up the last of its current $210 billion buyback plan sometime this quarter. So the company approved another $100 billion in buyback spending and increased its dividend by 16%.  

(Apple sold 52.2 million iPhones during the quarter, a bit below the 53 million Wall Street estimate. Check out Barrons.com for more on Apple's earnings report.)

For some buyback perspective, analysts have been expecting Apple to repurchase $43.9 billion worth of stock this year, according to FactSet. The next closest company is JPMorgan Chase, which is forecast to buy back $20.6 billion worth of its stock. The top five repurchasing group is rounded out by Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Citigroup. Across the entire S&P 500, the average company is expected to buy back $1.2 billion worth of stock this year. 

Source: Apple investor relations