After 20 years of suspended animation and a number of key metrics, including demographic shifts that are decidedly negative regarding future growth, something courageous and substantive was called for and long overdue.
There's an obvious idiot in every meeting. If you don't see him, it's you.
I agree, even though we all know that there must be some kind of correction ahead we can't just suspend all activities. Even plodding along is an active process and is better than completely shrinking back in fear.
I like to keep investing decisions based purely on investing decisions.
Certain stocks seem to have a more emotional core of investors or a more emotional core that refuse to invest in shares, for any number of reasons.
I look forward to the next opportunity to pick up shares and I know that I will likely have a short holding period. Not because I question the products, not because I question the corporate citizenship, but because I seek profits and my road to profits has been through short term ownership of shares on a cyclic basis.
No emotions, just a dispassionate approach to milking money from shares.
No doubt that there is an economic value to Apple. That's why congratulations are due.
I think that there is a larger picture, besides the fact that Apple simply caved to activist investors and sought to deflect criticism of the company under the leadership of Tim Cook.
I believe that their bond issuance will make very much less likely that legislation will be passed to encourage repatriation of cash in exchange for jobs or infrastructure additions.
Apple will still have the issue of having an incredible amount of assets overseas in a low interest environment and perhaps in a less safe banking environment, as well, and with no way to get it back to the US without meeting its obligations.
In my book, I discuss my past broker at length. I was fortunate to have worked with him for about 25 years, although I sometimes questioned (privately, never to him,) why we didn't take profits or why we sometimes gave up on a position.
He passed away very suddenly and unexpectedly and that was the time that I decided to take responsibility and put into action the ideas that I had been playing with in paper for years.
I do miss him, because he was one of the good ones, but there is a lot to be said for taking responsibility, isn't there?
Part of the fiction is that Apple's share price is held hostage by a low P/E and that low P/E will either serve to protect it from further price drops or will someday be recognized as aberrantly low and propel shares to all time highs.
Profits are one part of the share pricing equation. Whatever contribution a potential Apple TV may or may not have on profits may pale in comparison to the lack of contribution such a product would be expected to make toward earnings growth. That will cost you your next $100
Dividends are perceived to be desirable by investors. That's why CEOs are loathe to do anything other than increase dividends.
To suggest that distributing the cash to investors is a good thing because it prevents the CEO from doing something stupid, or ego inflating, is even more cynical than my way of thinking.
Presumably, those expenses are in support of the business. If not, then they are every bit as wasteful as delivering a return of share price to investors.
Your logic is missing an important component. Logic.
What's More Frightening Than A Fiscal Cliff? [View article]
In the end, I'll probably suffer no consequences for my lack of interest, but thank you for summarizing my position for those that couldn't understand the words, much as you apparently did not understand their intent. I tend not to predicate my decisions and actions on the basis of feared events and the suppositions of what the future may hold if those events were to become realized.
Spending an hour or two, as you suggest that I could have done, is not likely to alter a long established approach to dealing with investments as they react to an ever challenging stream of confounders. To do so is fairly irresponsible as any insights are likely highly superficial and uninformed. But please feel free to arm yourself with whatever knowledge you wish to gloss and make abrupt changes to whatever strategies you may currently use to advance your investment value. I will just wallow in my shallowness and wonder how ignorance has sustained me.
What's More Frightening Than A Fiscal Cliff? [View article]
Not even remotely close. Most people, through the fund of collected human knowledge know precisely what a Category 5 Hurricane is capable of doing. Even if a Category 5 doesn't materialize and instead is a Category 2, there will be tangible effects that experience has shown can be mollified by appropriate behaviors.
When it comes to the "fiscal cliff" there is no such past fund of knowledge. It is simply speculative and doesn't begin to be able to assess the effects of reactions to any drop from the cliff. The dynamics are entirely unknown and its occurence is also entirely uncertain. WHat exactly are investors going to proactively do in order to prepare themselves for an event with no real precedence? Go entirely ino cash? Shift into precious metals? My lack of knowledge is every bit as qualified to make an assessment as someone who is studied in an inexact "science".
The reality is that most people with investments, whether through the workplace or actively managed, neitehr understand nor respond to the myriad of "crises" that are on the radar screen. Professional investors may set up their portfolios to protect or take advantage of anticipated circumstances, but they do so in a knowledge vacuum and will have varied results.
Sometimes, it makes sense to simply ride out the storm when there may not even be a storm.
That Was The Crash, Dummy [View article]
Any relationship to the famous author Stephen King?
That Was The Crash, Dummy [View article]
That Was The Crash, Dummy [View article]
There's an obvious idiot in every meeting. If you don't see him, it's you.
I agree, even though we all know that there must be some kind of correction ahead we can't just suspend all activities. Even plodding along is an active process and is better than completely shrinking back in fear.
Shame On You, Apple [View article]
Certain stocks seem to have a more emotional core of investors or a more emotional core that refuse to invest in shares, for any number of reasons.
I look forward to the next opportunity to pick up shares and I know that I will likely have a short holding period. Not because I question the products, not because I question the corporate citizenship, but because I seek profits and my road to profits has been through short term ownership of shares on a cyclic basis.
No emotions, just a dispassionate approach to milking money from shares.
Shame On You, Apple [View article]
I think that there is a larger picture, besides the fact that Apple simply caved to activist investors and sought to deflect criticism of the company under the leadership of Tim Cook.
I believe that their bond issuance will make very much less likely that legislation will be passed to encourage repatriation of cash in exchange for jobs or infrastructure additions.
Apple will still have the issue of having an incredible amount of assets overseas in a low interest environment and perhaps in a less safe banking environment, as well, and with no way to get it back to the US without meeting its obligations.
It's All Relative [View article]
We Have Met The Enemy [View article]
In my book, I discuss my past broker at length. I was fortunate to have worked with him for about 25 years, although I sometimes questioned (privately, never to him,) why we didn't take profits or why we sometimes gave up on a position.
He passed away very suddenly and unexpectedly and that was the time that I decided to take responsibility and put into action the ideas that I had been playing with in paper for years.
I do miss him, because he was one of the good ones, but there is a lot to be said for taking responsibility, isn't there?
Apple Shares Are A Screaming 'Bye' [View article]
Profits are one part of the share pricing equation. Whatever contribution a potential Apple TV may or may not have on profits may pale in comparison to the lack of contribution such a product would be expected to make toward earnings growth. That will cost you your next $100
Apple Shares Are A Screaming 'Bye' [View article]
Apple Shares Are A Screaming 'Bye' [View article]
Apple Shares Are A Screaming 'Bye' [View article]
I Don't Understand Dividends [View article]
To suggest that distributing the cash to investors is a good thing because it prevents the CEO from doing something stupid, or ego inflating, is even more cynical than my way of thinking.
I like that.
I Don't Understand Dividends [View article]
Your logic is missing an important component. Logic.
What's More Frightening Than A Fiscal Cliff? [View article]
Spending an hour or two, as you suggest that I could have done, is not likely to alter a long established approach to dealing with investments as they react to an ever challenging stream of confounders. To do so is fairly irresponsible as any insights are likely highly superficial and uninformed. But please feel free to arm yourself with whatever knowledge you wish to gloss and make abrupt changes to whatever strategies you may currently use to advance your investment value. I will just wallow in my shallowness and wonder how ignorance has sustained me.
What's More Frightening Than A Fiscal Cliff? [View article]
When it comes to the "fiscal cliff" there is no such past fund of knowledge. It is simply speculative and doesn't begin to be able to assess the effects of reactions to any drop from the cliff. The dynamics are entirely unknown and its occurence is also entirely uncertain. WHat exactly are investors going to proactively do in order to prepare themselves for an event with no real precedence? Go entirely ino cash? Shift into precious metals? My lack of knowledge is every bit as qualified to make an assessment as someone who is studied in an inexact "science".
The reality is that most people with investments, whether through the workplace or actively managed, neitehr understand nor respond to the myriad of "crises" that are on the radar screen. Professional investors may set up their portfolios to protect or take advantage of anticipated circumstances, but they do so in a knowledge vacuum and will have varied results.
Sometimes, it makes sense to simply ride out the storm when there may not even be a storm.