AAPL

[LightningDawg]

Apple is reaching new highs....do you think it will continue to rise?
Or is it due for a fall? Everytime I consider buying it, I think it is too expensive. And it continues to go up.

 

[73ss454]

I was actually thinking of selling my GE and getting some AAPL. I also have no idea where the end is but I feel that way about every thing. Who can predict the future, not I.

 

[mh]

them seem to be (still) be doing interesting things that i think will translate to increasing their influence.

reworking iCloud, making osx more like their mobile devices. rumors of opening up apple tv to 3rd party apps. licensing airplay to audio manufacturers... i can think of worse tech companies to go with ...

 

[novaman]

I bought AAPL back in 2005 and had a huge position until end of 2009. I got spooked by all the rumors of Steve Jobs poor health, and the constant nagging of my advisor to diversify my portfolio to reduce risk (I was 90% stocks at the time), and a fear that we were headed for a double dip- so I sold all my AAPL and went cash for a while, then diversified my porfolio (60/40).

The move cost me big time. If I had done nothing, I'd be over a million dollars richer right now.

 

[braumeister]

For over two decades now, I've bought Apple stock every time it tanked, then sold it when it got so high I became nervous.
This has been a great strategy for me.

 

[Nords]

For over two decades now, I've bought Apple stock every time it tanked, then sold it when it got so high I became nervous.
This has been a great strategy for me.

I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one.

We bought it in 2001 for a pre-split $11/share just before OS X came out. It zoomed up to $15 in a few weeks, we ditched it, and we thanked our lucky stars that we didn't get snapped up in a pump&dump before users figured out what a dog OS X really was.

The lesson we "learned" (or at least have repeatedly validated) is that if a stock's price comes to spouse's attention to the point where she finds it worthy of discussion, then I should sell it at the next open.

If we had held, I would've learned nothing about assessing a stock's fundamentals. I'm sure our blissful ignorance would've only encouraged us to leverage our "bets" with ever-more-exciting tech stocks.

 

[KingB]

I bought AAPL back in 2005 and had a huge position until end of 2009. I got spooked by all the rumors of Steve Jobs poor health, and the constant nagging of my advisor to diversify my portfolio to reduce risk (I was 90% stocks at the time), and a fear that we were headed for a double dip- so I sold all my AAPL and went cash for a while, then diversified my porfolio (60/40).

The move cost me big time. If I had done nothing, I'd be over a million dollars richer right now.

Would you still trust an advisor?

 

[easysurfer]

I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one.

We bought it in 2001 for a pre-split $11/share just before OS X came out. It zoomed up to $15 in a few weeks, we ditched it, and we thanked our lucky stars that we didn't get snapped up in a pump&dump before users figured out what a dog OS X really was.

The lesson we "learned" (or at least have repeatedly validated) is that if a stock's price comes to spouse's attention to the point where she finds it worthy of discussion, then I should sell it at the next open.

If we had held, I would've learned nothing about assessing a stock's fundamentals. I'm sure our blissful ignorance would've only encouraged us to leverage our "bets" with ever-more-exciting tech stocks.

I thought about buying APPL at about pre OS X, but decided against that

What else can I say?

 

[novaman]

Would you still trust an advisor?

Shortly after the crash a few years back my advisor at Fidelity recommended that I talk with a division at Fidelity that managed larger portfolios for a fee. They were all stressing the importance of asset allocation (and I was 90% in stocks) and the riskiness of having so much invested in a single stock (AAPL was about 33% of my portfolio.

When I asked them what they were going to do they said they would definitely sell all the AAPL and put me in a broadly diversified portfolio and aim for a 6% annual return. At the time AAPL was around 120 a share, and the market was still coming off its lows, so I thought about it and declined.

I did however, really start to think about asset allocation and a diversified portfolio as stressed by my advisor, many of the books I've read, and those on ER and Boglehead. So I vowed that when I got back close to where I was before the meltdown I would do the smart thing and rebalance my portfolio.

So at the end of 2009 I sold everything, including AAPL....and missed out on an increase of over 1 million dollars.

So thanks to everyone on ER!!! AT least I'm diversified now.

 

[fancy free]

i bought in january 2001 and have held onto it and will keep holding onto it. back then, we loved apple products and our friends rolled their eyes. now our friends all have ipads and iphones and we still love their products.

"One can go on and on with the metrics of how Apple blows it away but lets just say that in 2013, iPad and app sales represent about 40 percent of Apple’s gross profits. Total gross profits could be about $80 billion (today is $25 billion). Cash flow could be about 75 percent of that (like it is today), or about $60 billion. Slap a 20 times multiple on that and you have a market cap of $1.2 trillion.

That’s a shareprice of about $1200 by 2013."

News Headlines

9.2 million iPads sold along with surprisingly strong iPhone sales

September launch of the iPhone 5

$76.5 billion in cash Apple has amassed

86% of the Fortune 500 companies are deploying or testing the iPad

'Fast Money' Recap: Apple Trades - TheStreet

 

[DoraM]

Slap a 20 times multiple on that and you have a market cap of $1.2 trillion.

That’s a shareprice of about $1200 by 2013."

This is not that far fetched. It could be that a trillion dollars doesn't even seem that outrageous by 2013...it is bantered around as a small thing in our US budget talks. I mean in a year or so, Apple will have a tenth of a trillion dollars in CASH.

I am lucky to have a Apple option spread that will pay off 156% if Apple closes above 350 in January. This is saving me from my recent Corning investment that went more south than I expected. I should still be ok on that one as long as the USA doesn't file chapter 7.

 

[wingfooted]

I dont know about $1200 - but $600 is clearly achievable in the next six months.

I've been in and out of AAPL so many times over the last two years, buy it - write the weekly calls, have it called away, write naked puts, have it assigned, rinse, lather and repeat...

Long term trend - up, up and away.

 

[Seeking Hobbes]

...we loved apple products and our friends rolled their eyes. now our friends all have ipads and iphones and we still love their products....

+1... I've been an Apple fan since the 80's, when the PC folks looked at them as a "toy". Cute, but not "serious" computers. After owning generations of Apple computers, (now) laptops, Ipods and an Iphone... I still think they are on the right track.

Although I only invested in them (opportunistically) during the 2008/2009 crash... It was the best thing I did. I only wish that I bought more. Even, this past week, as I shifted some profits into cash... I held on to Apple. They have too many GREAT products in the pipeline.

Oh... and don't forget this little stat...

50% of Consumers who are planning on making a phone purchase in the next 12 months are awaiting the new iphone...
"The study, carried about by Price Grabber, a division of Experian (the credit check company), polled 2,852 US consumers and found out that 51 per cent of people will buy the phone within 12 months of its release."

I fall into that category, considering that my old IPhone 3g (3+ years old) just died (sniff)
(You don't REALLY appreciate Apple until you have to go back to a non-iphone for a few weeks)

I guess I had better get in line now... (it's a good thing I'm retired)

 

[PaddyMac]

Buying Apple stock in the late 1990s when they were in dire straights was the best move we've done (it easily balanced out Enron and Exodus...). In fact, that's why we fired our financial advisor - we asked him to buy some AAPL and he ignored us, thinking we were nuts because "they were going out of business". Of course, in those few weeks the stock went up. We fired him, and his company made up the difference in the stock price.

It's a bit over 10% of our portfolio now. Over they years as it got over 10% of our portfolio and analysts would say it was overpriced, we sold a little; now we're happy just to hold it. We expect a big temporary dip if Jobs passes away, as he is the genius behind the brand, but we still can't think about selling it now with the reports we're reading. Long term, post-Jobs, I do worry if they can keep up the innovation.

 

[LightningDawg]

Another Apple blowout quarter. Once again, the Street blew it - Apple 2.0 - Fortune Tech


The number one guy on this chart predicts $850 by end of 2013.

 

[kcowan]

Apple was one of DWs picks (at a split-adjusted $8). At $75, we listened to advice about asset-allocation and sold it all. Bought back in for half the # of shares at $52 and still holding! I know we could make money on the swings but that feels too much like w*rk. We are holding on for the ride now.

DW also talked me into buying LULU at $37.45. When it was about $75, she asked if we should dump it. I quoted the same store sales increase and overall numbers and suggested we hold on for the ride. Currently at $121 (but split).

Both a very volatile so we don't watch them closely. Once a month, we note how much they are worth.

 

[fancy free]

Apple has more cash than the federal government | The Ticket - Yahoo! News

 

[kcowan]

They have $25 billion is short term and another $25 billion in long term holdings. The remaining $26 billion is not really accessible to the business like receivables, inventory and plant/equipment. All 3 classes will grow as the top line grows. The federal Government will spend their cash in the next two weeks. We have to think of the government as an orange.

 

[LightningDawg]

I went ahead and bought some aapl today. I think this is simply a "sale" price and that it will go back up as predicted.

 

[novaman]

After AAPL made the anouncement and the price shot up, I went ahead and did a detailed analysis using Phil Town's rule one investor calculator (he basically does a Graham style value investing analysis of a company to determine what the stock price should be). Based on the calculations using future PE of either a projection of the average for the sector, or the analyst's projection for AAPL, its sticker price ranged anywhere from around 800- 13000....

So at 400 or below AAPL is really a bargain right now.

When AAPL was sitting around 230 for a while the calculations showed that the sticker should have been in the upper 300's. I should have bought but I thought better and decided to stick with my broadly diversified portfolio, only to watch it go right up.

This time around I'm not sitting on my hands. On Monday I sold 30% of my stock funds and bought AAPL.

 

[LightningDawg]

I don't know if it will hit 800 anytime soon, but I do believe it is quite possible and actually probable that it will hit 500 in the next year. So I picked up some in the 380's and some in the 370's today.

I also told my daughter and son in law to buy some and hold it for the next 20 years. They will be very happy at that point to see how much appreciation occurred.

 

[copyright1997reloaded]

I bought a whopping 100 shares of AAPL around Nov/Dec 2001 for about $1875. Sold 100 shares after the split in 2005 around $38.75 to get my initial money out (actually double my money). Kept the remaining 100 which is now worth [-]$39,200[/-] $37,600 (today's close). While my career was in the tech industry and I am a tech guy, my rationale for the purchase was:
1. They had about $13/share of cash and equivalents on a sub $19 stock. This is reason #2 and reason #3 also.
2. Steve Jobs was back, and they were doing interesting things in terms of the mac OS.
3. While losing market share to Microsoft and losing money, I seem to remember they weren't burning though cash all that fast and I figured they had some time. See reason #1.

My rationale for selling after the split was to get my initial investment out. Stupid is as stupid does.

I've kept the remaining stock since then because while the stock has had wild variations, the underlying trend (since the ipod) hasn't changed...when it does, hopefully I will be [-]smart[/-] lucky enough to realize it. (I did also play the stock during the market meltdown, trading it a couple times short term and making a few $.)

While I am extremely happy about the investment, man oh man I wish my initial partake was 1k shares or ...

Selling 1/2 of AAPL certainly wasn't my biggest mistake, by far. A long time ago I bought 100 shares of Stryker (symbol SYK) for about $2k. This was shortly after they had gone public and was one of my first investments. I sold ALL OF IT around 1988 or so (can't remember) and was happy to have made some money on it (triple or whatever). That initial investment, if kept, would now be 16,200 shares @ about $50/share = $810k. Ouch. (And that doesn't even account for the dividend stream over the years.)

 

[ERD50]

Steve Jobs Resigns as Apple CEO - WSJ.com

The end of an era. What a turn-around story.

Hopefully, his health is good enough that he gets t spend quality time with his family. With the iPhones and iPads out and taking the market by storm, this is probably a good time as any to take a break.

Anyone looking for inspiration, just google his speech to the Stanford graduating class. In a few words, he really ties the loose ends of life together.


-ERD50

 

[clifp]

Other than brief handshake I never talked to the guy personally. I did go to a couple of Apple product launches where he talked, the Macintosh launch being the most memorable. So I was a casualty of the Steve Jobs reality distortion field. Which is what I and many of his other detractors said. The day after going to the Mac launch me and several other at the software company we worked for want to the CEO and demanded that we get an opportunity to buy Macintoshs, the CEO, a personal computer pioneer, called Apple I got a very early Mac, with 128K memory, and weird floppy drive.

However, over the last 15 years I have grown to respect not only his ability to distort people perception of reality, but to actually change reality. While I am not a fan of Apple products, (they are unintuitive to me) clearly the world has greatly benefit from them and the innovations that have made.

I hope he dies an old man.

 

[brewer12345]

And now all the Berkshire shareholders get to do a dry run of Buffett retiring.

I hope Mr. Jobs has a lot of miles on him yet, but I fear this is not the case.