Why investors love Apple's stock.

In dividends and buybacks they trust.

Apple generates a massive amount of cash.

And one of the reasons investors love Apple’s stock is because the company gives a lot of that cash back to investors.

It rewards them with things like stock buybacks and dividends.

Now, let’s start with why Apple has so much cash in the first place.

It begins with the fact that Apple sells one of the world’s most successful products.

There are already an estimated 1.5 billion active iPhones in use worldwide.

And still, the company is able to routinely lots more.

Right now, analysts on Wall Street expect Apple will sell 224 million more iPhones in the next year.

Sales of those devices as well as iPads, Macs, Watches and AirPods - not to mention all the services related money that Apple generates from music and TV and cloud storage - well, the money from that really adds up.

For context, Apple generated more than $110 billion in cash from operations in the fiscal year that just ended.

By comparison, Nike’s cash from operations stands at around $5 billion.

And for Coca-Cola, it’s around $11.5 billion

And even though Apple spends a huge amount on building out its business, it’s still left with a huge pile of cash.

Take a look at what happened in this last fiscal year.

I mentioned that more than $110 billion in cash from operations.

Nearly $11 billion went to so-called capital expenditures.

But Apple was able to also pay out roughly $15 billion in dividends.

And, it committed more than $77 billion to stock buybacks.

Buying back stock is seen as shareholder friendly, because it reduces the amount of outstanding shares.

That increases Apple’s profit per share even sales cool down.

And the numbers are only expected to grow from here.

Some analysts are already expecting Apple’s cash from operations will reach $150 billion annually within 5 years.

And so if you own a lot of Apple stock, you also get a chunk of that money.

Right now, Apple is paying a quarterly dividend per share of 24 cents.

That seems small on the surface, but if you own 1,000 shares, that basically entitles you to a $240 check for 3 months of the year.

And consider what it means for Warren Buffett.

His company, Berkshire Hathaway, owns more than 915 million shares of Apple.

That entitles him to a quarterly check valued at around $220 million.