Is it the new phone, the cash – or just animal spirits? After a swoon that bottomed in the middle of last year, Apple’s share price is ever so slightly higher than the previous peak in September 2012. That was the day Apple released a flawed maps programme, for which boss Tim Cook later apologised. The share price dropped by nearly half over the following eight months, as revenue growth fell from more than 20 per cent to roughly nothing.

This year, the price is up 25 per cent. At $100, Apple’s shares are trading at 14 times next year’s expected earnings, their highest multiple in three and a half years. What has happened? Not a return to vigorous growth – Apple’s revenue growth has been stuck in the mid-single digits for a year. The company has, however, been paying shareholders to hang around. It has spent $72bn on share repurchases and dividends in the past two years. Apple can afford it: it has $165bn in cash on hand and generated $49bn in free cash flow last year (more than a quarter of revenues). Morgan Stanley thinks Apple will increase dividend payouts to $12bn in fiscal 2015, which works out to $2 per share, a 2 per cent yield. And the buyback programme could be extended.

The iPhone 6, with a big screen, is expected to launch in September. Analysts’ estimates, which call for Apple’s sales in the final quarter of the year to hit $63bn, a $5bn, or 9 per cent, rise over the prior year. That implies a bigger launch, in both absolute and percentage terms, than that of the iPhone 5s. The market may find even this conservative. Anticipating the success of new products is speculative in any case.