Apple Surpasses My October $300 Price Target: What's Next? [View article]
So does AH mean after hours as some have speculated above?
I do not recall your article predicting a straight line to 300 when the stock was 245. I did buy some shares for my ira at around 250. I havent read about Google yet, but I expect they have done well. I also agree that Apple will have a very nice qtr/year end report in a few days. The iPad has done much better than they hoped. The iPhone is still selling well and they have an event shortly which some think will introduce new hardware as well as a new release of OSx.
I am not smart enough to say whether Apple hits 400 or not next year. I think if they continue executing it is a good bet. If they come out with their mobile devices on Verizon next year that should push their numbers. Verizon's announcement yesterday regarding them selling iPads is prelude.
Fighting for Survival in Mobile Phone Industry [View article]
"Furthermore, since it is open-source, the potential to create apps is much greater than for any major existing smartphone OS."
This is incorrect, both logically for truth value as well as reality in point of fact.
Can Google grow its app universe? Certainly. The barriers to entry are low. No one is the gate keeper which some see is a good thing and others take the opposite view.
Since anyone can put an app on the Google network, who is to protect the consumer from virus's, trojans, and other software that impacts platform stability and security of the users' information?
Certainly Apple is not perfect here, but they have a system to exclude apps that for whatever reason they deem undesirable. Malware would be one of them.
They have also recently posted guidelines for the app developers to help clarify what makes an acceptable app.
Are 2010 Apple Shares the New 1995 Dell Shares? [View article]
when has dell had any ideas? it is not a research company.
its strength was cost. the just in time model of manufacturing.
guess what? all its competitors have adjusted to the cost model.
so what does dell have to drive sales to it? yes. it still does build to order. apple refreshes its line about once a year. it does not to upgrades on individual items in the product, but the build to order model allows apple not to stock out of date equipment. this falls to the bottom line.
apple has always spent on research. all of its current products are a result of that. dell has always copied others.
dell has a problem. they compete with hp and others. the features are not much different. all have a web presence.
they need a new model. and it is not selling music players.
Mac Sales Surge but Did They Really Blow Away PC Sales? [View article]
Sam,
Granted a low base will create huge percentages with small numbers. But this shows that the corporate resistance to Apple machines is crumbling. the iPhone is a huge part of that.
Just like the IBM PC was a wedge in Mainframe hegemony, the iPhone may be the catalyst to create more diversity in the corporate network.
This will be true if some heavy hitters in Corporate America demand that their companies support the iPhone in the infrastructure.
Companies like eBay have already written their apps to allow direct iOS support on these devices.
The Market Is Starting to Recognize Research in Motion's Failure [View article]
Your assessment of RIMM's mkt share is a bit harsh. By your own tables in this submission they are making a nice margin and are making money year after year.
Their mkt share growth has stalled because of the advent of the iPhone. This does not obviate the fact that their market share will not evaporate overnight. They are a much stronger company than Palm was.
Your opening remarks about win 7 is speculation. The new OS may or may not have features anyone gets excited about. As you should know since you write about this space a lot windows market share has evaporated.
Would I buy RIMM now? No. But by the same token, they will make money for years to come.
How Should We Improve Seeking Alpha's Comment Rating System? [View instapost]
I am not sure what the issue is.
Yes pos/neg sometimes reflects whether the reader agrees or not with the posting.
There is really no way to regulate this.
What it does do is give a gross measure of how an aggregate feels about the posting. As you say, this is a measure of an individual discrete posting rather than a general assessment of your views.
Unpopular views are just that.
Just as there are contributors that seem to put out empty missives there are these individual ratings which sometimes reflect beauty contests.
Even with your criticism I see these ratings as useful.
In the end I see no alternative.
Just having a positive rating button is useless. You might as well have no rating on a blog post at all.
Empirical Evidence of Android Eating Apple, Literally [View article]
Can you provide the base numbers? ie qtr to qtr / yr to yr numbers for smart phone sales and all the vendors you list?
i agree that the android market has taken off and it is a hot platform.
however as apple's own numbers attest their yr/yr performance is in the high double digits. 8.7 mm phones over 2 models is nothing to sneeze at. by itself it is more than moto sells into that market and i believe more than htc.
yes. android gains by having multiple vendors produce multiple hardware items for the platform, but not all platforms are the same. there are still currently android models shipping using 1.6 thru 2.2. plus various overlays by the producers of the hardware and the service providers. ie a fragmented platform.
to me your graphs are skewed without knowing the numbers behind them.
in summary this is not a zero sum game. apple is clearly not dominating the space the way they were 2 years ago. but at the same time they are not nokia.
A Short Comment on Using Fundamental Analysis [View instapost]
I have long had issues with the price of Apple stock in relationship to the numbers they report. This is not a recent phenomenon.
You give very good examples, the most recent being the drop to the 80's when Apple was posting increases in revenues and income.
I understand your point about relating market cap to other companies be they tech or no.
However, at the end of the day, the price of any stock is only as high or low as what others are willing to pay for whatever reason. The reasons do not have to be rational and frequently are not.
The big lie is that the markets are rational. In my opinion the financial markets are run by sheep. They look for the 'leader' and follow that leader until they find a new one. In the dot come era, all these analysts would appear in public and with a straight face talk about how traditional valuations did not apply for company X. It did not matter that they had a p/e ratio of 1000 or not even a ratio considering many did not actually make money.
I recently scanned a book by G. Soros who made a point about the irrationality of markets. I need to buy the book. He gave a very good analysis of how markets are not rational.
An In-Depth Look at Apple's September Quarter [View article]
Andy
Thanks for the analysis. You did a very thorough job. I cannot argue with any of your assumptions.
Do you have any feelings on the how Europe and Asia will do in the last fiscal qtr? What about when do you expect the iPhone4/iPad to hit China?
Looking further down the road, do you agree with Barclays that the phone will get to Verizon in early 2011? Any ideas on when the phone will break with T in the USA?
I can see that the revenues are up. i can also see that in recent qtrs the ipad and mac is up and the iphone is flat, but i think this format does not give the insight it could.
i think bar charts would be more useful here. esp one bar per product category per time period. this would be more useful in gauging the relative strength of each segment period to period or yr to yr.
Apple's iPhone Pricing Is Resilient ... For Now [View article]
I have several issues with this analysis.
1. 6 year time period. While it is nice to do projections going out 6 years, to make any assumptions about pricing or features 6 years out is like predicting the weather next month. It is nice for a model for completeness but it is essentially worthless. For example, where was the phone market, prices, standard features 6 years ago? What about an electronic marketplace for mobile platforms?
2. Since this is an analysis of Apple, the bulk of their revenue/profits comes from outside the United States. There is no mention of foreign markets/projections here.
3. The PC segment is still a very large percentage of profits and revenue and is completely ignored.
Essentially, this is a partial analysis of a part of the company's business which is correlated to the target stock price for - assuming year end 2010 - a period which is not specified.
Also correlating competing phone prices over time period X without using constant monetary units is just bad form.
Apple Surpasses My October $300 Price Target: What's Next? [View article]
My question to you is what happened a few weeks ago when AAPL had a 20 point swoon? I am wondering if the SEC is looking into that.
It looked very fishy to me.
Thanks
Apple Surpasses My October $300 Price Target: What's Next? [View article]
I do not recall your article predicting a straight line to 300 when the stock was 245. I did buy some shares for my ira at around 250. I havent read about Google yet, but I expect they have done well. I also agree that Apple will have a very nice qtr/year end report in a few days. The iPad has done much better than they hoped. The iPhone is still selling well and they have an event shortly which some think will introduce new hardware as well as a new release of OSx.
I am not smart enough to say whether Apple hits 400 or not next year. I think if they continue executing it is a good bet. If they come out with their mobile devices on Verizon next year that should push their numbers. Verizon's announcement yesterday regarding them selling iPads is prelude.
Verizon to Sell iPad-Hotspot Bundle: What's the Motive? [View article]
What clearance sale? This is full price.
This can only be the first tangible sign of a growing relationship between these two companies.
This is a very good sign for Apple. A better one would be a cdma iPad on Verizon/Sprint.
Fighting for Survival in Mobile Phone Industry [View article]
This is incorrect, both logically for truth value as well as reality in point of fact.
Can Google grow its app universe? Certainly. The barriers to entry are low. No one is the gate keeper which some see is a good thing and others take the opposite view.
Since anyone can put an app on the Google network, who is to protect the consumer from virus's, trojans, and other software that impacts platform stability and security of the users' information?
Certainly Apple is not perfect here, but they have a system to exclude apps that for whatever reason they deem undesirable. Malware would be one of them.
They have also recently posted guidelines for the app developers to help clarify what makes an acceptable app.
Are 2010 Apple Shares the New 1995 Dell Shares? [View article]
its strength was cost. the just in time model of manufacturing.
guess what? all its competitors have adjusted to the cost model.
so what does dell have to drive sales to it? yes. it still does build to order. apple refreshes its line about once a year. it does not to upgrades on individual items in the product, but the build to order model allows apple not to stock out of date equipment. this falls to the bottom line.
apple has always spent on research. all of its current products are a result of that. dell has always copied others.
dell has a problem. they compete with hp and others. the features are not much different. all have a web presence.
they need a new model. and it is not selling music players.
Apple to Start Selling WiFi iPads in China on September 17th [View article]
Mac Sales Surge but Did They Really Blow Away PC Sales? [View article]
Granted a low base will create huge percentages with small numbers. But this shows that the corporate resistance to Apple machines is crumbling. the iPhone is a huge part of that.
Just like the IBM PC was a wedge in Mainframe hegemony, the iPhone may be the catalyst to create more diversity in the corporate network.
This will be true if some heavy hitters in Corporate America demand that their companies support the iPhone in the infrastructure.
Companies like eBay have already written their apps to allow direct iOS support on these devices.
The Market Is Starting to Recognize Research in Motion's Failure [View article]
Their mkt share growth has stalled because of the advent of the iPhone. This does not obviate the fact that their market share will not evaporate overnight. They are a much stronger company than Palm was.
Your opening remarks about win 7 is speculation. The new OS may or may not have features anyone gets excited about. As you should know since you write about this space a lot windows market share has evaporated.
Would I buy RIMM now? No. But by the same token, they will make money for years to come.
How Should We Improve Seeking Alpha's Comment Rating System? [View instapost]
I am not sure what the issue is.
Yes pos/neg sometimes reflects whether the reader agrees or not with the posting.
There is really no way to regulate this.
What it does do is give a gross measure of how an aggregate feels about the posting. As you say, this is a measure of an individual discrete posting rather than a general assessment of your views.
Unpopular views are just that.
Just as there are contributors that seem to put out empty missives there are these individual ratings which sometimes reflect beauty contests.
Even with your criticism I see these ratings as useful.
In the end I see no alternative.
Just having a positive rating button is useless. You might as well have no rating on a blog post at all.
Empirical Evidence of Android Eating Apple, Literally [View article]
Can you provide the base numbers? ie qtr to qtr / yr to yr numbers for smart phone sales and all the vendors you list?
i agree that the android market has taken off and it is a hot platform.
however as apple's own numbers attest their yr/yr performance is in the high double digits. 8.7 mm phones over 2 models is nothing to sneeze at. by itself it is more than moto sells into that market and i believe more than htc.
yes. android gains by having multiple vendors produce multiple hardware items for the platform, but not all platforms are the same. there are still currently android models shipping using 1.6 thru 2.2. plus various overlays by the producers of the hardware and the service providers. ie a fragmented platform.
to me your graphs are skewed without knowing the numbers behind them.
in summary this is not a zero sum game. apple is clearly not dominating the space the way they were 2 years ago. but at the same time they are not nokia.
A Short Comment on Using Fundamental Analysis [View instapost]
You give very good examples, the most recent being the drop to the 80's when Apple was posting increases in revenues and income.
I understand your point about relating market cap to other companies be they tech or no.
However, at the end of the day, the price of any stock is only as high or low as what others are willing to pay for whatever reason. The reasons do not have to be rational and frequently are not.
The big lie is that the markets are rational. In my opinion the financial markets are run by sheep. They look for the 'leader' and follow that leader until they find a new one. In the dot come era, all these analysts would appear in public and with a straight face talk about how traditional valuations did not apply for company X. It did not matter that they had a p/e ratio of 1000 or not even a ratio considering many did not actually make money.
I recently scanned a book by G. Soros who made a point about the irrationality of markets. I need to buy the book. He gave a very good analysis of how markets are not rational.
An In-Depth Look at Apple's September Quarter [View article]
Andy
Thanks for the analysis. You did a very thorough job. I cannot argue with any of your assumptions.
Do you have any feelings on the how Europe and Asia will do in the last fiscal qtr? What about when do you expect the iPhone4/iPad to hit China?
Looking further down the road, do you agree with Barclays that the phone will get to Verizon in early 2011? Any ideas on when the phone will break with T in the USA?
Thanks
Apple Should Buy Infineon to Own Mobile and Screw Intel [View article]
Apple's Revenue by Segment [View article]
I can see that the revenues are up. i can also see that in recent qtrs the ipad and mac is up and the iphone is flat, but i think this format does not give the insight it could.
i think bar charts would be more useful here. esp one bar per product category per time period. this would be more useful in gauging the relative strength of each segment period to period or yr to yr.
Apple's iPhone Pricing Is Resilient ... For Now [View article]
1. 6 year time period. While it is nice to do projections going out 6 years, to make any assumptions about pricing or features 6 years out is like predicting the weather next month. It is nice for a model for completeness but it is essentially worthless. For example, where was the phone market, prices, standard features 6 years ago? What about an electronic marketplace for mobile platforms?
2. Since this is an analysis of Apple, the bulk of their revenue/profits comes from outside the United States. There is no mention of foreign markets/projections here.
3. The PC segment is still a very large percentage of profits and revenue and is completely ignored.
Essentially, this is a partial analysis of a part of the company's business which is correlated to the target stock price for - assuming year end 2010 - a period which is not specified.
Also correlating competing phone prices over time period X without using constant monetary units is just bad form.