bought back $841 billion of shares. In the process it has reduced the diluted share count by 44%.

Let us look at Apple as an investor in AAPL would be looked at. Since March of 2012 when it started buyback, Apple has bought a 44% stake in 2012 Apple for $841 billion dollars. Let us pretend that Apple kept all those bought back shares, what would they be worth today? Well, shares are fungible so the 44% of 2012 shares Apple bought back would be worth (44%/56%)*$3.96 Trillion = $3.111 Trillion dollars.

So for $841 billion spent since 2012, Apple has bought back AAPL shares whos current value would be $3111 billion. That is a 170% return on its investment. If they had made the entire investment in 2012, that would be a CAGR of 7.9% which doesn't suck. But in fact Apple spread that investment out over the 13 years since 2012. If the "average" time since Apple made the $841 investment was 6.5 years, that would be a CAGR of 16.5%.

What can we conclude from this?

Well, you sorta have to conclude that Apple made an $841 billion dollar investment over the last 13 years that is currently worth over $3 trillion dollars. That doesn't suck.

I think we could also conclude that on net, Apple has not paid too much for its bought back shares. If it had paid too much, you would not expect it to have made somewhere in the 8% to 17% a year CAGR range which it has apparently made.

Good to know, seems to me.

R:)