Apple

[Grieve]

will make or break this rally. Apple is tech, it's retail, it's the poster child for American innovation. It also makes up 15% of the Nasdaq 100. If it smashes estimates tonight, I think the market will go a lot higher, with Apple breaking it through it's all-time high around $202 and the S&P breaking 1200 by Christmas. If it disappoints badly, I think the market tanks tomorrow, and maybe for the rest of earnings season. My bet is the former, but I have a big stake and I'm getting nervous...

[Thudz]

If Apple is the poster child for American innovation then we're fucked. I'm admit ably not an Apple fan BTW. I think they make over priced crap.

[Jakensama]

It is good at running ad campaign and getting legions of hipsters to buy every product they make and then a new version of the same product with the functionality the original should have been launched with shortly thereafter.

[Grieve]

They just destroyed estimates... Love Apple.

[Grieve]

If Apple is the poster child for American innovation then we're fucked. I'm admit ably not an Apple fan BTW. I think they make over priced crap.

You're confusing them with the typical American (i.e. Chinese) product, which is to say under priced crap. Apple, on the other hand, make high quality products and charge accordingly. You can say it's overpriced, but the fact so many people are willing to pay up kind of makes that moot. And it's patently not crap.

Anyway, this is an investing forum, and you can't argue with the numbers. If you'd put $1000 in the S&P on Jan 1st 2001, you'd have $825 now, almost 9 years later. If you'd put it in Apple you'd have over $20,000. Losing money vs a 2000% return? They must be doing something right.

To quote Yahoo finance:

So, to recap: Apple sold more Macs and more iPhones than in any previous quarter in the company’s history. Before the holiday quarter. And in midst of the worst economy we’ve seen in 50 years.

http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/art...hones-Sold

[Thudz]

Not hard to beat all of your sales numbers (Mac) when you have a single digit market share, %9.63 last time I looked.

[Grieve]

That's why they are such a great invesment. Just look how much potential upside they have.

[Jakensama]

And it's patently not crap.

You have never used AppleTV, I see.

[Grieve]

You have never used AppleTV, I see.

Actually I was very tempted to get that and drop DirectTv, but my wife vetoed it.

Were you not impressed? I know it hasn't sold well, but it has gotten good reviews. Admittedly it's cheaper to use Hulu/bittorrent, if you have a media center PC.

http://reviews.cnet.com/digital-media-re...06442.html
http://gizmodo.com/355843/apple-tv-20-review
http://reviews.digitaltrends.com/review/...0gb-review

[Jakensama]

My roomate got it and I tried to stream divx files of my PC- of course it couldn't access PC network drives or read divx files without getting patch sticks and hacking it via Unix, which you shouldn't have to do for an overpriced product that doesn't evey support 1080 resolutions.

Then I bought a ps3 for just a touch more money, and got something that streamed divx files out of the box, played blue rays, played ps3 games, had 1080p support, and lo and behold I didn't have to hack it and void the warranty to do any of this.

[Grieve]

Yeah, it's obviously iTunes/Mac oriented. Even Jobs said it's more of a hobby project right now. I use XBMC myself, which runs on AppleTV, so I probably would have taken that route.

[Grieve]

Below are some of the upgrades for Apple today (it's at around $199 right now). If it reaches $256 a share, it will have a higher market cap than Micro$oft. It already has a higher market cap than Google, IBM, AT&T, Cisco, Intel, Oracle, and basically everyone else except MS.

I dumped my GE and bought more AAPL this morning.

Gene Munster, Piper Jaffray: Overweight rating; target to $277, from $235. He notes that “Apple can’t build enough phones to meet demand.” His FY September 2010 EPS estimate goes to $6.86, from $6.01.
Toni Sacconaghi, Bernstein Research. Overweight rating; target to $230, from $210. He writes that iPhone econonics “continue to astound,” with cash ASPs up about $60 sequentially to over $600, with 60% gross margins. He notes that unlike, say, Research In Motion (RIMM), profitability is increasing as they gain market share. His FY 2010 cash EPS estimate climbs to $8.28, from $7.59.
Charlie Wolf, Needham: Strong Buy; target remains $235. FY 2010 EPS to $7.30 from $6.70.
Samuel Wilson, JMP Securities: Market Outperform; target to $220, from $200. FY 2010 to $7.10, from$6.86. He contends the stock can continue to outperform, driven by expanding iPhone footprint, including China.
Brian Marshall, Broadpoint.Amtech: Buy rating; target to $235, from $210. Nice headline on his note: “Do you like Aples How do you like them Apples?”
Richard Gardner, Citigroup: Buy rating; target to $250, from $196.
Oppenheimer, Yaier Reiner: Outperform; target to $235, from $210.
Phil Cusick, Macquarie: Outperform; target to $250, from $220.
Clyde Montevirgen, Standard & Poor’s: Buy; target to $220, from $200.
Peter Misek, Canaccord Adams: Buy; target to $250, from $200.
Tavis McCourt, Morgan Keegan: Outperform; says stock at $250-$260 “looks reasonable.” Sees GAAP gross margins trending up to the 40% range over the next year.
Robert Cihra, Caris & Co.: Buy; target to $265, from $235. Says that “somebody forgot to tell Apple about the recession.”
Keith Bachman, BMO Capital: Outperform; target to $245, from $210.
David Bailey, Goldman Sachs: Neutral rating; target to $210, from $195. Contends that most of the stock’s continued strong performance has been priced into the shares.
Doug Reid, Thomas Weisel Partners: Overweight; target to $245, from $210.
Andy Hargreaves, Pacific Crest: Outperform; target to $260, from $190.
Ben Reitzes, Barclays Capital: Overweight; target to $235, from $208.
Chris Whitmore, Deutsche Bank: Buy; target to $250, from $225.

[Crice]

One can only hope... I went with some in the Petro Industry, Natural Gas etc. TGC and DPDW... .DPDW was up 18% today, great day lol

crice

[amins]

AAPL & ISRG are my big winners for this week. Wish I'd have set up BIDU as well, but only so much money to be made with a limited trade account!

Some good breakout plays setting up:
FSLR
POT
BBBY
HES
PBR

[Vanraw]

Interesting story this morning on Nokia sueing Apple for 10 of its GSM patents. I read they are looking for compensation of between 12 pounds a phone (it was a UK article). Thats like $500 million.

Nokia has sued Apple over claims that the iPhone infringes on 10 of its wireless technology patents. The suit appears to be an attempt to squeeze Apple for higher royalties than the iPhone maker is currently willing to pay.

[Vanraw]

Interesting. Nokia's claim could be 1 billion.

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://moconews.net/article/419-damages-could-be-worth-1-billion-in-nokia-apple-patent-spat/">http://moconews.net/article/419-damages ... tent-spat/</a><!-- m -->

[Vanraw]

FYI Last week I bought some November Puts for 200, at 3.35, and I just sold them for 6.20.

One of those hunch high risk things that I thought would pay out based on the nokia law suit. In the end the market ignored Nokia, but then the stock corrected and I made a bunch of money anyway .

[Grieve]

Nice trade! I never thought the Nokia thing would amount to anything, but the Nasdaq has been hammered recently. I still thing Apple will be $250 to $300 inside a year.

[Breand]

I bought apple the day before the iphone annoucement when it was around $80, and sold it at $120. another one I shouldve held.

[Vanraw]

I bought apple the day before the iphone annoucement when it was around $80, and sold it at $120. another one I shouldve held.

I call that a dam good trade.

[Grieve]

The Jesus tablet cometh.

Looks like it is going to be announced late January now, probably shipping in March. Apple stock hit an all-time high today in response. I still feel good about winning my bet against Maul!

The tablet is looking better and better. There is news now Apple is making deails with media companies to offer full subscriptions to their channels only for a set monthly fee. In other words...if all the shows you watch are on 3-4 channels (say ABC, HBO, NBC (or Fox for my right wing friends!), and Disney for the kids) you can pay for just those, instead of giving your cable company/satellite TV some ridiculous amount for 500 channels you never watch. The Rockville Purge group have been talking about that years (probably not so good for you, Breand...)

The best thing is, Apple estimates are already in the high $200s, and that doesn't even take the tablet into consideration. In other words, even if it's a total bomb, you still have great upside. If it takes off...I can easily see the stock in the $300s within a year.

And if all this unalloyed Apple love makes you sick, bear in mind I'm talking from an investment point of view. Apple is already up 267% from it's $78 low in 2009, so it's worked out pretty well so far...

[Vanraw]

Apple is soaring!!! Dam you Grieve!!!

[Breand]

My day trading account, granted I opened it in March 2009 when everything was cheap as hell:

C up 91%
PGH up 70% plus monthly dividends of .10 a share
HIMX up 86%
NEM up 21%
FAS up 120%
ATVI up 14% (I only bought this a month ago)
and I sold PIR for a 200% profit, if I held it be up 1050%!

[Grieve]

Apple is soaring!!! Dam you Grieve!!!

:wink:
I think it had plenty of room to run, with iPad selling well and multitasking on the way. Whatever you think of Steve Jobs, he's turned Apple into a money-making machine since he came back.

Best thing is that it's easy to justify my iPad purchase to the wife, since we've done so well with the stock.

[Vanraw]

Yea I see people calling for 300. I just dont see the value, but it will probably get there.