Apple's Long Road To $300 264
itwbennett writes "Apple shares inched over $300 for the first time Wednesday, nearly 30 years after Apple's initial public offering in December 1980. But it hasn't been a steady climb. In fact, says blogger Chris Nurney, 'Apple's stock history can be divided into two clear periods — the early years, from the IPO through Steve Jobs's long absence from the company after losing a power struggle in 1985, and the modern Jobs era, which began on September 16, 1997.' The bottom line: 'If you had purchased $10,000 of Apple stock the same month that Jobs again began leading the company, your shares would be worth $554,000 today. Not a bad return on the investment.'"
You didn't even have to purchase it that early (Score:5, Informative)
Steve Jobs came back in 1997 and it had a small surge that was crushed in the dot com boom. Up to early 2004, you could acquire shares reasonably close to the 1997 price, it fluctated 1.5-2x, sometimes 3x, but after early 2004 it skyrocketed.
1997-2004 is when they had all those color iMacs and gaudy design (remember those awful clamshell notebooks?) befoe the industrial design. It returned to profitabilty, to be sure, and laid a lot of other groundwork, like 2001 was the release of OS X, to be sure.
And that same year (2001) iPod was released. Think about that. For almost 3 years after iPod's release, you could still have bought Apple at a bargain basement price. It took a long time for Wall Street to shed the malaise it had with Apple after the late 80s and early/mid-90s decline.
Would Make an Interesting Chart (Score:2)
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To be fair, Mac OS 9 was crap of the worst kind (think "Windows Me") and Apple must have known this all along, since their designers even provided iMac owners with a handle to throw it into the trash.
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Mac 7 and 8 weren't that hot either. I remember the bomb way to vividly. It made of the Windows Systems of the day seem stable and we're talking about Win 95/98. And to people using NT back then, Mac must have been a really bad joke.
I never used 9, so I can't guess how it was worse than the crap 7/8 already was, other than being even longer in the tooth in it's day.
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We can trade anecdotes all day, but I've been using Macs since OS 5 (Lisa baby) and NT since 3.51 (missed the bad days) and I think you're full of crap. Just trying to do work on classic OS Macs with Adobe applications is often enough to crash the machine several times per day. I've probably used almost as many different macs as different PCs by this point, every major and minor version... and I'm immeasurably thankful to put all that crap behind me.
With that said, NT4 was a huge step backwards. While Apple
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Just an example, but so far OS 9 is the only OS that ever crashed on me after displaying a simple standard screensaver. Considering the only app installed at that time was a Novell client I'd call that an achievement.
Re:You didn't even have to purchase it that early (Score:4, Insightful)
And that same year (2001) iPod was released. Think about that. For almost 3 years after iPod's release, you could still have bought Apple at a bargain basement price. It took a long time for Wall Street to shed the malaise it had with Apple after the late 80s and early/mid-90s decline.
Also remember that iPod sales didn't begin to explode until after Apple released the Windows compatible iTunes. Sure, MusicMatch would work in 2002, but it has hacked together at best and not many people knew about it.
The 3rd gen (late April 2003) came with Windows compatible iTunes. It was the 4th gen in Oct 2004 that really began to pick up.
So the iPod for those 2 years was only officially compatible with Mac (5-8% market share depending on where you get your stats). Limiting yourself to within that market share isn't a very good idea.
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Also remember that iPod sales didn't begin to explode until after Apple released the Windows compatible iTunes. Sure, MusicMatch would work in 2002, but it has hacked together at best and not many people knew about it.
When using playlists, MusicMatch could end up putting the same song on your iPod several times. I ran out of space unreasonably fast. MusicMatch was a piece of crap.
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With restrospect, around 2004 the iPod was sold on its luxury, and the Mac on its friendliness. They flipped that around so that the iPod was friendly and massmarket (Mini), while the Mac was a capable computer (Macbook, new iMac). Yet they held an afterimage that the iPod was high quality and the Mac was easy to use. That switcheroo was pretty savvy, in hindsight.
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...remember those awful clamshell notebooks...
Yes. I remember them fondly. I still think, to this day, that the graphite notebook is one of the coolest looking laptops I've ever owned.
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You realize the iPod Touch came *after* the iPhone right? iPod Touch was announced in September of '07, while the iPhone was announced in January of '07.
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The iPod wasn't (by a long shot) the first mp3 player, at the time mp3 players were still a relatively new-fangled thing that most people weren't yet using, and Apple's now-accepted user-friendliness wasn't in play either. In fact the iPod UI isn't amazing anyway.
There were more mp3 players, but they generally had either less capacity, or they were a lot bulkier. And the iPod UI really was better than the competition in various subtle ways. The scroll speed speeding up the longer you scrolled, made it very easy to quickly scroll through your 4000 songs.
It wasn't exactly an "OMFG I must invest in Apple right now!" moment. It wasn't really until the iPod Touch and then rumors of the iPhone that things got really interesting.
The "OMG I must invest in Apple right now!" moment was when they introduced the iPod Nano. It was then that I learned that the iPod Mini (which it replaced) was the best selling iPod at the time. The Nano was so much
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On the other hand (Score:5, Funny)
'If you had purchased $10,000 of Apple stock the same month that Jobs again began leading the company, your shares would be worth $554,000 today. Not a bad return on the investment.'"
However, if you bought Apple stock, you probably bought about $600,000 in Apple products: iPhones, iPads, iTunes iThinkpads . . . etc.
So you are down 56,000 on the deal
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But you have a heck of a lot of gadgets to sell back on eBay if you need cash !
My Two Cent Analysis (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:My Two Cent Analysis (Score:5, Informative)
Read more carefully please. The OP said "That was the reason the original Apple 2 was successful. You didn't have to know how to wield a soldering iron to have an affordable home computer." At the time the Apple ][ was released, the late '70s, that was pretty much true.
Scary thing: Jobs's health (Score:2)
I bought at $10 and finally sold at $180. The thing that scares me about holding Apple stock long-term is Jobs's pancreatic cancer. Apple management demonstrated clearly that they are not forthcoming about their CEO's health, and let's face it, we've seen what would happen to Apple if Jobs had to dial back his involvement. More than any other company Apple needs its CEO.
They do make great products though, and deserve all their success. I hope my fears are unfounded and that Steve lives a long and health
Thank you, OneShare.com (Score:2)
I bought one share of Apple stock back in September 2001, when it was trading at about $20. The stock has split since then, so I now have two shares.
Hearing this news, I really wish I'd bought more.
The thing about Apple (Score:2)
It is very much a key man company. I don't want to be holding stock the year Steve Jobs dies - no one else has the, no, I won't say "vision" for a company that repackages old tech and patents something as innovative as a text filter - call it the marketing skills, Steve has. The minute he dies Apple becomes an overpriced PALM.
Re:The thing about Apple (Score:4, Insightful)
They wouldn't have Steve's panache of course,
My argument is that once you take away said "panache", what's left? It's not the hardware that's amazing. It's certainly not selling because of price. It's not diversification that keeps the Apple/iCon stores going. It's not because Apple is the de facto market leader in cell phones, PDA's, MP3 players or computers. It's Steve Jobs, plugging his products to the world and carving out his (I'll be generous) 10%. However these toys (because that's what they are) are impossible to justify in a business setting because of price - there are cheaper, fully functional alternatives. Apple will always be the product for teenagers to show off at school ("look what daddy bought me for Christmas!"), or for idiots who bought the whole argument about Apple computers/software being "flawless", or those who are just too lazy to think, learn and comparison shop.
Darnit... (Score:2)
Wish I had bought AAPL and GOOG in real life rather than in a stock market simulator game.
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Is the "amazing windows mobile 7" shill some sort of meme? Are all the cool kids doing it?
I'm beginning to find it quite amusing. If ever there was a platform that was late to the market and consumers aren't interested in, it's windows mobile.
The ways of business are strange and inscrutable, but in the consumer market who is going to actually purposefully buy a windows phone?
Re:Bad news (Score:4, Insightful)
Me?
Initial reviews have been good [gsmarena.com] and the development environment for Windows Phone 7 is one of the best I've worked in. Expect lots of great games and apps for this platform.
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(I had put joke tags of holierthanthou in them pointy things around the first paragraphs, but they were ofcourse disappeared...)
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That is the true tragedy of the commons.
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Tragedy? Perhaps the things that you believe are so crucial are just not important in the larger scheme of things. Did you ever stop to think that perhaps you are the fringe element and mainstream simply doesn't care that they can't install some random app from some random developer? A quarter of a million apps does a lot to allay fears of a 'restrictive' platform. Linux is totally free and open, yet it too struggles with mainstream acceptance. Did you ever stop to wonder if perhaps being open and free wasn
Re:Bad news" (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe that makes me a good person, and it probably makes your philosophical conclusion less valid and your movement less worthy.
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...The ways of business are strange and inscrutable, but in the consumer market who is going to actually purposefully buy a windows phone?
With the blackmailesque death-grip that Microsoft holds over corporate America, do you really have to ask that question?
I didn't "buy" my last three Windows Mobile phones. They were issued to me.
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It works for Android, none of the consumers know and purposefully buy Android, they just buy 'a' smartphone that's not a Blackberry and not an iPhone. Nobody knows RIM, iOS, Android with all the versions, etc. Only the technical people do, and we hardly make up or even affect the consumer market (or Linux would've made it a _long_ time ago)
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Yes, let's subtract "technical people" from people who buy stuff so that we can pretend "consumers" don't purposefully buy Android phones. Let's also define "technical people" as "people who know what OS their phone runs" so that we aren't talking utter bullshit.
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I was thinking that Windows Mobile 7 would be a big hit in the enterprise market. .docx file as of now - this is where Windows Mobile 7 can enter the market and capture it.
Windows Mobile 7 will be a big danger not to Apple, rather to Blackberry.
They can go for the best Office/Documents/Outlook integration possible - and who would not love it?
I have not seen many phones which can properly format a moderately complex
Re:Bad news (Score:4, Informative)
They can go for the best Office/Documents/Outlook integration possible - and who would not love it? .docx file as of now - this is where Windows Mobile 7 can enter the market and capture it.
I have not seen many phones which can properly format a moderately complex
Yeah, but if you've seen the direction Microsoft is taking with Windows Phone 7, that's not it. They are going for "social networking" and "iPhone/Android knock-off," not "Mobile Business Computing."
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I have not seen many phones which can properly format a moderately complex .docx file as of now - this is where Windows Mobile 7 can enter the market and capture it.
Maybe they can work on it after they decide on a standard for .docx, because I can't seem to get two copies (of the same version of word) to reliably display the same file in the same way on two different machines. I wish what I saw on the screen matched what people would see when they get it. I would personally use LaTex and .rtf formats for everything, but 'the world runs on windows' and when I send an .rtf to one of my bosses, they are so overwhelmed by the cascade of prompts and dialog boxes needed to t
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It's all about the platform though, and the mobile phone market is only half the picture given that iOS also ships on iPods and iPads; both markets where Apple's competition is still playing catch-up.
iOS, with version 4, is finally at the stage where it's 'complete' (which is more than can be said for Windows Phone 7 at least until next year). What Apple need to do now is actually start to think, can we make this better? Otherwise, improvements in newer Android and Windows Phone 7 will eclipse iOS which w
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I don't know if it would be a revolution for the user, but I'm thinking Apple should start developing iOS in some sort of vector graphics system instead of bitmaps, now that they are pushing display close to or beyond what the human eye is capable of discerning. I know the fonts are like this already IIRC, but I mean the icons and everything. And then port it back to regular OS X.
That way they wouldn't be stuck rehashing everything to look right when simply releasing iOS to a new category of product (ie i
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Resolution independence has been 'coming soon' in OS X for years now. I'm pretty sure it was meant to be one of the features of Leopard, which was quietly dropped and still hasn't made it into Snow Leopard.
Apple are previewing [arstechnica.com] the next version of OS X next week, and I won't be at all surprised if resolution independence is mentioned. I'll be very surprised, however, if it makes it into the final product.
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I have to wonder what triggered Apple's interest in RI. If/when we have a display technology that can reliably produce large, very high resolution (ten times the current dot pitch) displays, it'll be useful and nigh-essential, but on LCD that's not going to happen because of cost, and the current wave of upcoming technologies are more about picture quality than resolution.
Re:Bad news (Score:5, Funny)
Jobs is crying himself to sleep that he makes half the money in the cellphone industry with only a twentieth of the marketshare. Weeping.
Re:News For Nerds??? Stuff That Matters??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Your long random rampling about how great your life is and how miserable people that own stocks and shares and money are makes me think that maybe you actually aren't that happy but are you just trying to tell that to yourself...
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The whole point of my comment was that stock prices is not "News For Nerds" as Slashdot claims to be.
I have news for you -- Nerds are not one big homogeneous mass, and you're not the sole arbiter of nerd taste.
But regardless, how can anybody be so blind as to not see the significance when a computer company that was nearly dead a dozen years ago now has a bigger market cap than Microsoft or Walmart, and is closing in on Exxon? No matter what your personal feelings are about their products, they've clearly tapped into something that's getting large numbers of people to fork over their hard-earned money.
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Begging your pardon, but if Slashdot removed every article where one person had "little interest" in the topic, then there'd be no fucking articles.
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Yeah, what a crazy guy, wherever did he get the idea that you made the assertion that the price of stocks and shares doesn't matter to nerds....
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You are repeatedly defining nerd in terms of you. Until you get past that, there is nothing to debate.
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As you are, a self professed nerd, you likely have a reasonable grip on logic. Consider this hypothetical example:
Joe sixpack is a guy. A guy who likes to drink beer, but he does not like to drink wine.
Joe sixpack asserts that because he does not like wine and that he is a guy, that guys do not like to drink wine.
This is hasty generalisation, that is drawing a conclusion about an entire group based on insufficient evidence.
In your original post you stated you weren't interested in share prices, and you also
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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where the next packet of cheetos is going to come from
Classic.
+1 funny for that excerpt, but it might not have been clear form just a modding, so there ya go.
In all seriousness, if I was rich, I would still enjoy commoner activities like eating packaged snack foods.
Yeah, large quantities of money as the freedom to do what you want - also called "'Fuck you' money". Thing is, you have to make sure to not get entangled in the process of *getting* that money, and I don't think wise/lucky stock market investing doesn't come with too many special strings attached. (
Re:News For Nerds??? Stuff That Matters??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe you should respect that other people have broader interests than you? I personally find it interesting that a vertically-integrated software and hardware company could become a serious part of the economy, after seeing the aftermath of Commodore two decades ago. If this offends you so, you can go stand with the dipshits who can't stand SF clogging up precious sports time in the TV schedule.
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Commodore made chip design, manufactured chips, did board design, manufactured the boards, made the cases, made the OS, and sold the computers to the retail channel. They even made some applications.
Apple designs cases, designs the overall system, makes the OS. But they do no chip design. And they do not have their own manufacturing facilities for anything. It is all outsourced to someone in China or Korea.
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This is true, they're not integrated to nearly the same extent. It's something they seem to be aiming to increase, though. I have to wonder if they'll buy out some of their more important component manufacturers in the coming decade.
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So apples engineers who designed the altvec coprocessor,apples design specific hardware that allowed for true plug in play. And currently apples purchase of pa semi conductor which designs the A4 processor (a slightly modified arm).
Apple has a long history of custom designing hardware. Then those designers work with the software people to get more computing power out of a given spec.
That sounds like they are vertically integrated to me. They may not design every aspect but why reinvent the monitor?
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If the only thing you see in an article about Apple's stock price is what it means for their investors' bank balances, I humbly suggest that you are the one who is obsessed with money.
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Use your imagination! We're talking about one company that controls its hardware, its software, and increasingly the services you can use on them, and it's doing very well. What happens when they're not a minority player any more? What happens if they get pulled up for anticompetitive practices? What happens if the reliability of their stock turns them into a cornerstone of investment banking? What happens to the economy if Jobs then dies and Apple, almost inevitably, does a backflip? What if they get bough
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Excuse me? Nobody's asking you to be personally interested in this article. You're the one calling for it to be stricken from Slashdot because you can't see the relevance of it, and I've shown why it's "news for nerds", which was all that was necessary to rebut you. The discussion is over.
I'm certainly not going to answer your hilarious, and no doubt logic-free, accusation in the third paragraph. I have in my entire life possessed exactly one Apple product. I've experienced significantly more brand loyalty
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Are you kidding me? You can't even parse a sentence? It means "I have no doubt, that your accusation was not founded on logic", not "your accusation has neither logic nor doubt". Sweet non-existent Christ, you're a tedious troll.
I rebutted your statement thoroughly by existing, as a nerd who has an interest in this topic. I outlined the reasons for my interest, for completeness, in the above comments. There are several other nerds discussing the subject avidly at this moment in this comments section.
If you'
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A commonly used tactic. Cannot win main argument discussion, therefore moves to discussion of semantics.
You should have considered that before you made an inept attempt at attacking my semantics, and were found wanting.
Points 1 and 2 in your argument are examples of the true Scotsman fallacy, and are at any rate unsubstantiated. It's great to see my ability to predict internet debating styles holds up.
Once again, the objective is not to convince you to be interested. The objective is to demonstrate that thi
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While I agree with you that nerds, scientists and engineers are more valuable to society (I'm asking for a flame, I know) than economists and the latest Wall street Gugu, it does not mean that we must block all information about the financial issues of the world.
It takes you only 5 seconds to scan a summary on /. and /. obviously expects its readers to make the conscious decision to stop reading if they consider it a waste of time. There are plenty of other topics to read...
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Re:How is Apple's stock price not a bubble? (Score:5, Insightful)
There is nothing fundamentally sound about apple stock -- it is a company that sells overpriced inessential consumer items ... The stock price is riding on hype, not on merit. Once the hype goes away (and it will) there'll be a lot of people burned.
I made a good chunk of cash on Apple stock this year, but IMHO only idiots would seriously invest in it for the long term.
Awwell, not so important anyway, enjoy your flamewar.
There's nothing fundamentally sound about the pet rock either, yet it made the "inventor" a millionaire.
And your comment about once the hype "goes away" is laughable. Kids have been lining up at Apple stores like it was Black Friday, drooling for the latest and greatest tech for years now.
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In the long term Apple will get dethroned when the people which are doing all the manufacturing work start selling on their own for cheaper. Samsung was already in the game and their products have been getting more compelling.
Oh and Apple hardware seldom is the best. What Apple is good at is system integration. It is the sum of the parts, rather than the parts themselves.
Re:How is Apple's stock price not a bubble? (Score:5, Insightful)
Dude, Apple has taken over half of all the money made in the smartphone market, they basically created the entire market for consumer tablets, their Mac business has been growing faster than the entire PC industry year-over-year, for the last 10 years, they have launched the most successful online music store, they've owned a very significant part of the PMP market since 2001, they have been raking in profits around $2 billion a quarter the last few years, their sales have been largely unaffected by the global downturn, their stock price has increased 50-fold in less than 10 years, their competitors are scrambling to imitate about everything they have created over the last decade, and still you keep insisting that it's just hype, it's inflated, that everyone is living in a reality distortion field, they are overrated and they are rolling on hipster hype?
Really, if you honestly believe all this yourself, you are the one living in a reality distortion field, and I sincerely think you should get your head checked. Not liking Apple stuff is perfectly fine, but you'd have to be a first-class idiot to be so myopic and unable to look beyond your own little world to think like this. I really feel sorry for you if you're so jaded you can't get over the fact not everyone is like you when it comes to computer and gadgetry preferences.
Re:How is Apple's stock price not a bubble? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:How is Apple's stock price not a bubble? (Score:5, Insightful)
does Apple pay dividends or are stockholders just a bunch of people agreeing that a piece of paper is worth $n because fertility rate of penguins skyrocketed? After all penguins and performance of Apple have exactly the same influence over the price of stocks, which is 0. People think it matters but they are wrong. Dividends are what allows to evaluate realistic value of stocks. Without that you just trade a piece of paper and your investment is all about finding a greater sucker once you want to get your money back.
How is that different from housing market which crashed not that long ago? 'It can only go up' bullshit and people lined up to buy only to flip the house to somebody else. House doesn't pay for itself (unless you are into rentals) so it's not much of an investment, your only hope is to find a greater sucker. Stock market full of dividend-less stocks is just a game of hot potato, last one will get burned and wiped out.
Re:How is Apple's stock price not a bubble? (Score:4, Insightful)
If a stock does not pay a dividend, you may as well "invest" your money at the casinos.
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If you think Apple, the company, has no influence over AAPL, the stock, you're a complete idiot. In absolute seriousness you'd need a combination of total ignorance of the facts and a complete disinterest in discovering them for you to draw that conclusion.
You have m shares, and Apple's projected value in tangable assets like cash (from selling gizmos), facilities, and personnel in the near future is X. X = m * $n.
The housing market imploded because the estimates of X were a mixture of delusion, fiction, an
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when you put your money in the bank, you expect to get n% every year. That helps you to estimate viability of your investment. Same thing with stocks with dividends. You see company's profits, you estimate how much they pay the shareholders, you calculate how many years is required for the investment in that stock to pay for itself and any money coming in later is pure profit for you. You have some hard data to work with.
Now apple stock - company may be worth n, may have net profits m/year but that doesn't
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...and Google has a PE of 23.5, with less growth and more difficulty finding new sources of revenue. Come next week, Apple's PE will drop down to 20 or so again with their new earnings report.
Re:How is Apple's stock price not a bubble? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How is Apple's stock price not a bubble? (Score:5, Insightful)
There is nothing fundamentally sound about apple stock -- it is a company that sells overpriced inessential consumer items ...
They sell those overpriced luxury items to a loyal, expanding base of consumers with large disposable incomes, following a consistent yearly schedule of product releases and upgrades. And that's been the state of their business for the best part of a decade. As an investor, it's practically everything you could ask for in a consumer goods company.
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Ah, but you see Apple's meteoric rise is not due to them behaving like a consumer goods company, instead they've become a fashion house. So things shall get real interesting for the brand once Steve shuffles off this mortal coil. So like all investments based on fashion, there is some risk of the fickle mob changing their tastes.
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I'm not sure what you mean here. Apple's customer base is anything but fickle, it's famously loyal.
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It's about perception when it comes to the stock market. Many analysts and investors believe that Apple is growing and are optimistic about the potential. Given the track record over the last decade, they are right to be optimistic. With the exception of a few products like the Apple TV, Apple is successful and has made tons of money every time they venture into a new market. At the same time, they are experiencing growth in their traditional market of computers. Could Apple stumble badly? Yes any com
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Re:Apple don't pay dividends (Score:5, Insightful)
The only way you can make money from Apple shares is by selling Apple shares
And the only way you can make money from diamonds is by selling diamonds. Ergo, diamonds are valueless, and it's all a huge bubble. You twit.
You get a pyramid scheme or bubble when there's a disconnect between the actual value of the item being speculated upon, and the price that is placed on it by the speculators. Apple's got a high share price right now because they're raking in a truly comical amount of money with a hugely successful line of high-margin consumer goods. The company is actually worth a great deal more than it was in 2004. No bubble.
Re:Apple don't pay dividends (Score:4, Insightful)
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The stocks' value is no more abstracted than that of cash money. It's not useful for anything except passing it onto somebody else, but it represents something with a well-defined value, respectively a certain fraction of the nation's collective resources in food, material, and skill, and a fraction of Apple's resources in facilities, personnel, knowledge, and cold hard cash.
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Ultimately, owning stock means you own a part of the company -- that is what stock is, a share of ownership. So there is some intrinsic value (billions in cash, real estate, other assets) in the stock even if you never sold it.
But with that argument, ALL STOCK is speculation -- even those that may offer dividends. I've owned stock that promised a dividend, but then lowered it (which also devalued the stock) and ultimately cut the dividend all together.
Buying stock is a bet you're placing on a company's futu
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Yeah, that was a stupid example now you mention it.
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But the supply of diamonds has been limited with the intention of raising the price above what they'd be worth otherwise.
The exact opposite has had to occur with Apple stock over the years.
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Yeah, terrible example, apologies. I should've stuck with something mundane like platinum.
Re:Apple don't pay dividends (Score:4, Insightful)
Y'know, calling you a twit was unjustifiably douchebaggy of me, and I apologise for that unconditionally.
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If valuing based on dividends, you need to consider the possibility of the company growing for several years, and, upon reaching mature state, starts to pay dividends. In a few years time, earnings may have grown several times due to reinvestment and growth, and the resulting annual dividend payout would be a sizable amount. You'd get a justifiable price today by discounting the hypothetical payout.
However, many things could happen between now and then. Management can hoard the money and give themselves b
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Do you really think $10k of liquid assets makes someone 'rich'? I know people who make $10k a month and are still not able to buy a Ferrari.
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