[rdl]

It's taken as a sign that the company doesn't have anything more productive to do with the cash than buy back its own stock. This could be a positive or a negative.

If Apple had $5b in cash and decided to buy back stock, that would be a bit bearish -- they certainly can continue to make incremental cash investments (in supplier agreements, new products, etc.). $100b (which is actually probably $110-120b now, a month later) is way beyond that. Getting $50b returned to shareholders wouldn't be a sign of lack of investment options for Apple.