Sterne Agee Believes Dividend Makes Most Sense for Apple

Sterne Agee has published a research report on Apple (NASDAQ:

) believing that the company's dividend program currently makes the most sense. In the report, Sterne Agee writes, "While we find the timing somewhat curious sending out a notice on a Sunday afternoon PT, we nonetheless believe that the topic will likely be around dividends. As we have said before, we believe paying a dividend makes a lot of sense for both shareholders and employees given the company's high profitability and strong ability to generate free cash flow. The company's net cash position currently stands at $97.6 billion and is growing rapidly quarterly. In fact, we estimate that AAPL will likely generate $75-80 billion in free cash in the next four quarters vs. the $45.3 billion we estimate the company generated in the previous four quarters." Sterne Agee maintains its Buy rating and $620 price target on Apple, which closed Friday at $585.57.