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Cramer: This is a Clint Eastwood-style buyback

Apple accelerates buyback
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Apple accelerates buyback

Apple's Tim Cook made a bold move by repurchasing $14 billion worth of his company's own stock during the past two weeks, CNBC's Jim Cramer said Friday, a measure Cook disclosed to The Wall Street Journal on Thursday.

How bold exactly? Well, it was so audacious that Cramer compared Cook's move to Hollywood's notorious hair-trigger cop—Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry movie character. Cramer said the buybacks seem liked Apple was saying, "Good ahead—make my day," to Wall Street a week after its stock took a hit because of disappointing first-quarter results.

"Right? Literally it's a Clint Eastwood buyback," Cramer said on "Squawk on the Street." "And I love that. I congratulate them. Bravo for listening."

(Read more: Apple buys back $14 billion stock since results)

Cook told the Journal that he was surprised when Apple shares dropped 8 percent the day after it reported earnings on Jan. 27. Cramer said Apple's buyback plan seemed like a smart move compared with stock repurchases from companies such as Cisco and ADT.

Still, it's hard to gauge Apple's growth prospects without a firm handle on upcoming products and because of declines in foot traffic at shopping malls, Cramer said.

(Read more: Cramer: Apple's 'big schism')

"I wonder whether same-store [sales] dropped off, again because of mall traffic," Cramer said. "There are a lot of moving parts here with Apple. Apple is a part of the GDP is what I'm saying."

Cramer wondered whether this could be enough to satisfy activist investor Carl Icahn, who's been on a public crusade to persuade Apple to use more of its $158 billion cash reserves for more aggressive stock buybacks.

Apple's recent stock repurchases are part of a $60 billion plan.

"They did want he wanted," Cramer said of Icahn.

Disclosure: Cramer's charitable trust owns shares of Apple.

—By CNBC's Jeff Morganteen. Follow him on Twitter at @jmorganteen and get the latest stories from "Squawk on the Street." Reuters contributed to this report.

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