Evaluate the significant trends you see for the company's investor ratios by discussing how the payout of dividends affects retained earnings and whether this may affect financial leverage on the company's earnings per share.

From the perspective of management, discuss how you think the investor ratios calculated will affect external stakeholders behavior.

Investor Ratios	2022	2021	2020
Degree of Financial Leverage	0.597	1.034	1.893
Earnings per Share	6.15	5.67	3.31
Diluted Earnings per Share	6.11	5.61	3.28
Price/Earnings Ratio	26.83	23.86	22.37
Percentage of Earnings Retained	-0.03	0.06	0.26
Dividend Payout	0.15	0.15	0.25
Dividend Yield	0.56	0.47	0.27

The degree of financial leverage indicates the volitility of earnings per share compared to operating income. Apple has been able to decrease this ratio showing that Apple has steady earnings.

The earnigs per share improved significantly from 2020 to 2021 due to Apples growth in the service industry which improved total revinues without increasing the cost of revenue.

Dliuted earnings per share saw the same effects as earnigs per share for the same reasons

Becouse of the significant increase in earnings per share the price earnings ratio has also seen a significant improvment indicating that investors will get a higher return on their investment.

Apple has been increasing the amount of retained earnings over the past three years primarily to reinvest into its online streaming services which has caused a significant decrease in percentage of earnings retained ratio.

The dividend payout has also decreased due to the increase in net income but steady payments for dividends,

Each year the dividend yeald has increased primarily due to the price per share