Apple Inc. (AAPL), bowing to pressure from the California Public Employees' Retirement System and other shareholders, agreed to start electing its directors by majority votes rather than a plurality.

Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook, speaking today at an annual investor meeting, also said Apple was continuing "active discussions" about what to do with its $97.6 billion in cash and investments, saying the cash hoard was "more than we need to run a company."

Investors at today's meeting passed a nonbinding measure in favor of the board-election change. A similar initiative was approved at the gathering last year, though it wasn't adopted by Apple. The company changed its stance after previously saying that the change would cause board members to lose their seats in cases where too few shareholders cast votes.

Some investors also are demanding that Apple return cash to investors in the form of a dividend or stock buybacks. The money pile, which includes short- and long-term investments, has risen more than 63 percent since last year's annual meeting of shareholders.

"The board and management team are thinking about this very deeply," Cook said.

David Fuller's view Given Tim Cook's comment above, it seems very likely that Apple will soon declare a dividend. It has been widely rumoured and is certainly a factor in Apple's accelerated performance this year (weekly & daily).

Interestingly, following the downside key day reversal on February 15th, Apple did not extend its next day decline through to the close. Continued demand has led to three new closing highs this week so demand is still somewhat stronger than supply.

It is anyone's guess as to how many people have bought Apple this year in anticipation of further demand from funds which only hold dividend paying shares. However, for some traders this may be a short-term situation of 'buy the rumour, sell the news'.

Subscribers have already pointed out that Apple is certainly not expensive in terms of its earnings cash flow. Fullermoney continues to regard the share as a brilliantly successful Autonomy. It also has the tailwind of a cyclical bull market. Nevertheless, other than takeovers, I cannot think of a share or commodity that has accelerated well above its 200-day MA, as we currently see with Apple, which has not experienced shortly thereafter at least some ranging mean reversion back to the MA.

This prospect may be of no consequence to long-term bulls of Apple and Fullermoney is just pointing out that the short-term risks have increased. We use price charts for perspective, not least when crowd sentiment is at an extreme. Some Apple shareholders discuss the share with a religious fervour. Gold bugs have a similar regard for the yellow metal but that did not prevent last August's accelerated advance from reverting to the trend mean, before regrouping and strengthening once again.