but it would be much better if this 'adviser' saw your approach and bought the shares for you.
Now you have to open another account, file another 1099, more paper work, ect.
Why can't he just buy the stock for you? Ridiculous.
If that was my broker I would fire him. Its my money not his.
Sorry if I misled you. That's exactly what I had my adviser do, at my initiative and direction. And he's not a broker. He doesn't handle money. Are you aware there's a difference?
Isn't it widely publicized that over 80% of actively managed funds underperform their benchmark? I wouldn't worry too much about what hedge fund managers fear.
(Note: just because a managed fund may underperform its benchmark does not mean you are likely to do better. It only means that if you are looking to buy into a sector, it's probably best to buy a low-cost index fund rather than a fancy managed fund.)
It's documented in John Bogle's book, "The Little Book of Common Sense Investing." Index funds will outperform managed funds over time. With that said, I have Vanguard Wellington Admiral Shares which is managed, but has done well for decades and is pretty cheap.
But hedge funds generally do well enough. Otherwise, they wouldn't exist. Could they do better? Sure. But again, there's no way to know in advance. I've been confident in Apple for a long time, but, as I said, I have only myself to answer to.
Hedge funds invest in a combination of long and short positions, trying to get a good return with a reduced downside risk. They generally get a fee plus a percentage of the upside (2% and 20% seems standard). Over the past decade they have significantly underperformed compared to the market average, and have not shielded their participants from risk better than index funds. Some funds always do better than average of course, but what we've seen here is completely consistent with chance. CALPERS, the largest public pension fund in the US, has recently taken all of its investments out of hedge funds.
So is Google.
So is Exxon.
So is BMW.
So is Mercedez Benz
So is Audi
whats your point.
Amazon has 100 tricks and makes money on none of them.
and none of them are really growing and Gas and oil is not a good example, everyone needs to buy gas for now that is so it low risk to be one trick pony. However, you do not need an apple product or as some would like to believe, apple is easily replaces with another tech company solution. Yeah same is true for gas and oil, they tried to make people brand loyal to gas, does not work well unless your a NASCAR fan and you buy the gas they use and will drive miles to get it. Gas companies will always make money.
The problem is the people running wall street and driving large investment decisions are still operating in the 90's and were burned during the dot com bust and believe company diversification is best, They see google as diversified as well as amazon. But what these idiots do not realize, More companies are splitting apart, this is how Ichan is making his money forcing larger companies to split apart even it that means all the pieces fall apart later. The more focus companies are doing far better than the big conglomerates. But for wall street is hard to manage risk with smaller focus companies than the big guy into everything.
Face it a large % of people on wall street are not risk takers they, they see risk takers end up in jail these days.
"As Bloomberg Brief reports, the funds returned 7.1% in 2013 through November; that’s 22 percentage points less than the 29.1% return of the S&P 500, with reinvested dividends, as markets rallied to records. Hedge funds are [SIZE=26px]underperforming the benchmark U.S. index for the fifth year in a row.[/SIZE]"
So I'm paying these clowns 2% and 20% every year to underperform the S&P index which I can buy for .02% fee?
You know why this happen, what I read is they stayed away from the top earning stocks in those years Apple being one of them. At this point I think it is going to happen again in 2015.
Over the last few year I moved most of my money out of mutual funds and into single stocks because the funds were not keeping up with the broader market. Our government put so many restricting in place the fund guys can not do anything. I'll give you a simple example, I have a 529 for my kids, use to move the money around when the market was weak pull it out and put in money markets and when it turned around I would move in back into the market, the only way to protect from the down side, two year ago the feds put in new rules only one investment change per year on 529 no longer allowed to move in and out of funds as you see fit. Same it true for 401k, unless it is just an auto balancing the portfolio. You are limited on how many transaction changes you can now make in a given period.
Today you can do far better by picking a few good companies and investing in them, verses finding a couple of good mutual funds, none of them seem to be keeping up.
Personally, I see a lot of risk buying Apple. Too much of their profit hinges on the iPhone. They've done well this year, due to a bigger phone which a lot of people wanted and it drew people from Android.
Really? Apple profit hinges on iPhone since the first iPhone...3-3S, 4-4S same screen, blown out sale, 5-5S, same screen, again blown out sale. The same will be from 6-6S and Apple continue to repeat this trend while their sale# keeps going up. Remember one thing: Apple have loyal customers, so the installed base is crazy good on upgrade cycle.
On a whole hedge funds/mutual funds/institutions are holding less $ of stock than in 2012. The reason is the buybacks.
Many funds were fully loaded on Apple at the end of 2012, which is why, after the 73% rise in the stock price, they sold off for tax reasons. Less funds are fully loaded now, but we also have funds who couldn't buy in because Apple wasn't offering a dividend.
This ceiling represents a threat to Apple's stock price.
Regardless of how well Apple do, there is a limit to the share price because of the law of large numbers. The hedge fund ceiling is a manifestation of that law.
Balderdash. Apple is happily buying back its own horribly undervalued stock. The sky's the limit for AAPL.
Personally, I see a lot of risk buying Apple. Too much of their profit hinges on the iPhone. They've done well this year, due to a bigger phone which a lot of people wanted and it drew people from Android. How do we know Apple hasn't plateaued? We don't. It very well not be any kind of growth stock, In a way it doesn't appear to be a growth stock due to dividends being given out. Apple may come under pressure to lower prices as it completes against itself for its own customers. Now many people have a great phone, such as the iPhone 6+, so do they need to upgrade every two years? Many will. But will a new phone draw more customers to Apple? Where will Apple's stellar growth come from? Just because Icahn says Apple should be over $200 doesn't make it so. He wants it to be over $200 like anyone else. I think if hedge funds want to make money, they will go look for smaller, growing companies. Ones with great potential to add to their portfolio. There is risk there, but great reward. Apple feels like risk and little reward now.
I so t agree with this argument. I've been hearing similar things for years. As Cook said, after the last quarter, only 15% of iPhone users had upgraded. That leaves a large number left. But, close to 20% of sales are to people new to iPhone. That's 20% growth right there. Even if it's less, the more people who buy an iPhone, the more people who will upgrade. That's growth.
As far as your upgrade cycle goes, the vast majority of smartphone users around the world do upgrade every two years. In Asia, many upgrade every year, as a smartphone e there has more meaning than it does here. And where is the largest growing market?
Yeah, I read the financial sites, and sprague with the authors. Some are like you, too worried about iPhone percnetages. Don't worry. Apple clawed their way back into the world top spot, kicking, along with cheap manufacturers, Samsung out of thentop spot. And that's without a phone that costs less than $399 without contract. As we know, ablut 70% of Apple's phone sales are of the newest model(s). The cheaper, older ones just serve to get people to Apple.
Apple's msrp for phones went up this year, not down. it's abouut $690, vs. about $635 last year. That's an excellent sign.
So these hedge funds won't buy more Apple but will buy more loser stocks to midigate risk? How is buying loser stocks helping?
Pure stupidity. If I wanted market gains I would just buy an index fund that cost virutally ZERO in fees.
If I'm paying a hedge fund 2% and 20% each year I expect much more. And that includes having the balls to be over-weight on stocks they think are winners.
Funds cannot go overweight on highly volatile stocks. Too much risk that their quarters might end up in lawsuits. Everyone who is responsible for managing billions is going to flee from risk to save their own skin.
99% of Google's profit is Search.
99% of Exxon's profit is Oil.
Whats your point again?
You think Apple stopped growing?
They just reported 30% revenue growth and 38% profit growth last quarter. Which by the way totally BLOWS AWAY Google's growth numbers. Apple only holds 20% of the smartphone market yet you say their growth is over? What are you smoking! China revenue up 50%. Emerging markets up 45%. US up 20%. Europe up 25%. Again what are smoking!
Apple giving way to lower priced phones! WTF!!! Where have you been!!!! Apple just RAISED the prices on their phones with the 6/6+. The average selling price on the iPhone HAS GONE UP 20% YoY!!! None of your arguments are making any sense.
Man you seriously don't know anything about investing. Invest in smaller growing companies? Like GTAT? Guess what? Those smaller companies are smaller for a reason. And a ton of them go BANKRUPT.
All your arguments are what the media was saying in 2012. You are totally out of date. None of the FACTS back up a single word you said.
You bring no FACTS to the table. NOTHING. No P/E ratio's, no Balance sheet analysis, no capital allocation, no revenue growth, average selling price, growth in China, ect. You are just spewing some random BS you heard on CNBC the last 2 years.
I have to agree with you in these things. In fact, my last post pretty much did.
Google is an advertising agency. Everything they do is for the purpose of adding to places where they can place Ads. Exxon depends on international entities to price oil, and they have no control over that at all.
I twisted nothing. I said nothing about whatsoever about options, so maybe it's you who are trying to put words in other people's mouths. All I provided were links to articles about Andy Zaky, who played the Apple tune exclusively for years and years, including buying and holding. I was one of those, and I did 60% per year gains compounded annually, when I decided to get out in mid-2012 (and that was luck on my part more than anything else). It was great for Zaky and lots of his clients while it lasted ... until it didn't last. You're the guy who seems so fixated about the options aspect of the Zaky story. The lessons to be drawn from the Zaky saga are timeless. Don't let greed blind you. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. Know when to hold 'em; know when to fold 'em.
What is it about you that you always have to pick fights with everybody? I'm not your enemy.
Actually, going by the record, you were unlucky to get out in mid 2012, if it was really mid 2012. You would have missed the peak. But it's so much higher now, and you missed the dividends from the beginning. You are happy about this?
as melgross said, Tim Cook mentioned during the last February quarterly conference call that only a low % of current iPhone owners barely in the teens (e.g., 14%) have already upgraded to the iPhone 6. so even if Apple was a one trick pony which it is not, iPhone 6 sales still have a long ways to go for years to come
you mention Apple's rumoured trade-in program for non-iPhones. if true, it's a great thing and a win-win for both customers and Apple not a negative as you paint it. Apple gets more profits on the trade-ins it would not have gotten before and does not have to lower prices to sell more iPhones, and the customer gets extra cash from an old phone that would have sat in a drawer
Apple's new Watch and ultrathin/ultralight 2 pound MacBook will sell out at launch and sell millions this year so it has many other growth prospects
Apple has grown a lot. People may be wondering if the machine is going to slow down. There are other stocks out there from other companies that don't have the popularity of Apple. Also, I don't watch TV (not for about 8 years) and I've never seen CNBC. I do read the WSJ on Saturdays. It's clear I didn't have any evidence for what I wrote. It's conjecture. I said "we don't know" what the future holds. I know enough about investing from reading John Bogle's books and Bogleheads and that's good enough for me. Some of us are busy with jobs and kids and don't have time to read company balance sheets. The point about phones (or whatever is sold): when there is saturation of the market, maybe you do have to lower your prices as your product has matured or you can't bring more customers over. Funny, right after I wrote about cheaper phones, over on another rumor site was a story about Apple having a trade-in program for competitor phones. It's another tactic to get people to buy the iPhone because the phone itself is not selling itself to these potential customers. Anyway, people make begin to feel that Apple's reach the top and the growth has been too good so maybe it's time to stop buying she stock and diversify. Apple is a bit of a one-trick pony financially as the vast majority of its profits come from the iPhone. Google is more than search. Google's about information and that can be worth a lot of money. Search is incidental. Again, that's conjecture based on reading what can be found online anywhere.
Wow, a lot of words to say absolutely nothing. Stop pretending you're objective or analytical. Every single one of your posts is extremely down at Apple, extremely negative and pessimistic about their future prospects, products, and leadership. I don't even know why you post here, or why you use Apple products, since you have such a consistently low opinion of the company. And if you seriously believe Apple has no growth left, you severely lack imagination. Thankfully, those at Apple have alot more of that than you do.
The Apple brand has so much equity, so much brand power, that they can choose to get into any industry they wish, and as long as they make a good product, they can at the very least be successful in that industry, if not dominate. One does not need much imagination to see what these industries could be. Your line about Google being a more "diversified" company compared to Apple is also utterly hilarious. Apple controls the whole stack- The OS, the hardware, and the services. Every single product they sell is extremely successful. Hundreds of millions use both their mobile OS, they desktop OS, and their services. People adore the company. Name one successful, profitable Google hardware product? Their free OS is typically grotesquely modified by OEMs.
Most people don't give a shit about Google, beyond their search and email services. And yes, Google's business model is entirely dependant on search, and on attaining your information- something people are getting more concerned about. Apple will soon do almost everything that Google does (everything that people care about), while retaining your privacy. Google has tried and failed to "diversify" many times. Apple has succeeded almost every single time, and the possibilities are utterly endless (medical industry, fashion, automotive, etc). Looking back, the Apple of today might look pathetic in 5-10 years. It's sad that you can't see that, or choose not to.
Quote:
Funny, right after I wrote about cheaper phones, over on another rumor site was a story about Apple having a trade-in program for competitor phones. It's another tactic to get people to buy the iPhone because the phone itself is not selling itself to these potential customers
What a ridiculous and insane statement to make after a quarter of Apple selling 75,000,000 phones, and a probably 60,000,000+ this quarter, typically a "slow" quarter. Yeah, they're just so desperate that they use this "tactic" because the phone is "not selling itself". That's quite the distortion of reality, and I wonder why you're so compelled to look at whatever Apple does through such a twisted lens. By that definition, Apple should never spend a dollar on marketing, because that would prove their products are not "selling themselves". This is a smart move that will pad sales to an even higher level, not some kind of desperation tactic as you so wish it to be.
Actually, going by the record, you were unlucky to get out in mid 2012, if it was really mid 2012. You would have missed the peak. But it's so much higher now, and you missed the dividends from the beginning. You are happy about this?
Sure. if I held on, my compounded rate of return from capital appreciation as of today (split-adjusted) would be a bit more than 38%, not 60% as I enjoyed. (Add a couple more percent for dividends.) Yep, I left about $100 per pre-split share compared to three months later when it peaked around $700, but greed can be dangerous during high volatility. Look at all the folks who bought in near the 2012 high and rode the roller coaster right down to $400 in 2013. Correct me if I'm wrong, sog35, but weren't you one of them and weren't you calling for Tim Cook's head on a pike?
Monday morning quarterbacking is a wasted exercise, Mel. I'm happy that I did well, but apparently you believe that with the benefit of history, I should be unhappy because I didn't do "well enough."
It's well documented in many places now that active fund managers are unable to beat the broader markets over time and few can pull it off even over short stretches. The remarkable thing is that so many investors remain willing to pay through the nose for this lack of performance. The other key to index fund investing is diversification and rebalancing, as this takes sector rotation into account, another market behavior that active managers have a poor track record in predicting. They often try to compensate through style drift, which can expose investors to more than the advertised risk for a given fund.
Sure. if I held on, my compounded rate of return from capital appreciation as of today (split-adjusted) would be a bit more than 38%, not 60% as I enjoyed. (Add a couple more percent for dividends.) Yep, I left about $100 per pre-split share compared to three months later when it peaked around $700, but greed can be dangerous during high volatility. Look at all the folks who bought in near the 2012 high and rode the roller coaster right down to $400 in 2013. Correct me if I'm wrong, sog35, but weren't you one of them and weren't you calling for Tim Cook's head on a pike?
Monday morning quarterbacking is a wasted exercise, Mel. I'm happy that I did well, but apparently you believe that with the benefit of history, I should be unhappy because I didn't do "well enough."
Not benefit of history. As many people here know, because it comes up almost every time we talk financial, since 2004, that I bought a load of Apple then, and I've held it, and bought some more in 2008. So I'm talking from experience, not from hindsight.
It's well documented in many places now that active fund managers are unable to beat the broader markets over time and few can pull it off even over short stretches. The remarkable thing is that so many investors remain willing to pay through the nose for this lack of performance. The other key to index fund investing is diversification and rebalancing, as this takes sector rotation into account, another market behavior that active managers have a poor track record in predicting. They often try to compensate through style drift, which can expose investors to more than the advertised risk for a given fund.
The problem most people have, is that they're simply afraid. They want to invest, so they do, but not on their own decision making. Mutual funds, hedge funds, managed accounts, all of these make make people feel as though the professionals, who after all, must know what they're doing, will do a better job for them than they would do for themselves.
And they're right! Most people would lose their investments if they made their own decisions. Another problem these people have, is that they know so little, that they're easily convinced to not worry, we'll take care of it for you. They also don't know how the market does each year, so if they're told that they made 8%, that seems great. After all, they may make a percent, if they're lucky, from their bank account, so that sounds great.
And yes, I know, they should learn about it. But this is way too complex and frightening for most people. Look at what the Bush administration wanted to do with Social Security. Individual accounts for people to invest for themselves. How dumb! And it was as though the administration didn't even know that SSI is for people,working now, not for yourself.
So what would happen if tens of millions of people lost their money in the market, and they were about to retire? The outcry would require the government to somehow pay for them anyway.
I don't want to get political about this, but the concept that people know enough to do their own investing, or often, even do research to find out the best way to invest is optimistic, at best. So I suppose for them, making significantly better than inflation is better then they could expect, if it eases their minds.
The problem most people have, is that they're simply afraid. They want to invest, so they do, but not on their own decision making. Mutual funds, hedge funds, managed accounts, all of these make make people feel as though the professionals, who after all, must know what they're doing, will do a better job for them than they would do for themselves.
And they're right! Most people would lose their investments if they made their own decisions. Another problem these people have, is that they know so little, that they're easily convinced to not worry, we'll take care of it for you. They also don't know how the market does each year, so if they're told that they made 8%, that seems great. After all, they may make a percent, if they're lucky, from their bank account, so that sounds great.
And yes, I know, they should learn about it. But this is way too complex and frightening for most people. Look at what the Bush administration wanted to do with Social Security. Individual accounts for people to invest for themselves. How dumb! And it was as though the administration didn't even know that SSI is for people,working now, not for yourself.
So what would happen if tens of millions of people lost their money in the market, and they were about to retire? The outcry would require the government to somehow pay for them anyway.
I don't want to get political about this, but the concept that people know enough to do their own investing, or often, even do research to find out the best way to invest is optimistic, at best. So I suppose for them, making significantly better than inflation is better then they could expect, if it eases their minds.
The general impression of investing is that it's either gambling or voodoo, so people with this idea don't invest. The other problem, equally wrong, is that individual investors buying stocks can readily beat the markets, so they either make bad investments, or try to time buying and selling. Two sides of the same coin. Others turn to professional managers.
One of the dirtiest secrets of professional management is that a great many of the people who peddle investment management do not have a fiduciary responsibility to their clients, so they may be only incidentally helping the client after they do what is in their own best interests. The other dirty secret is how many 401k managers work. They can charge enormous fees that the account holder doesn't even know about because the plans are selected and managed by their employers.
The best longterm strategy for most investors is drip investing into a balanced portfolio of ETFs. The fees are much lower, and the index funds will outperform active investing over time. The message on this is getting out, if only slowly.
Comments
Isn't it widely publicized that over 80% of actively managed funds underperform their benchmark? I wouldn't worry too much about what hedge fund managers fear.
(Note: just because a managed fund may underperform its benchmark does not mean you are likely to do better. It only means that if you are looking to buy into a sector, it's probably best to buy a low-cost index fund rather than a fancy managed fund.)
It's documented in John Bogle's book, "The Little Book of Common Sense Investing." Index funds will outperform managed funds over time. With that said, I have Vanguard Wellington Admiral Shares which is managed, but has done well for decades and is pretty cheap.
But hedge funds generally do well enough. Otherwise, they wouldn't exist. Could they do better? Sure. But again, there's no way to know in advance. I've been confident in Apple for a long time, but, as I said, I have only myself to answer to.
Hedge funds invest in a combination of long and short positions, trying to get a good return with a reduced downside risk. They generally get a fee plus a percentage of the upside (2% and 20% seems standard). Over the past decade they have significantly underperformed compared to the market average, and have not shielded their participants from risk better than index funds. Some funds always do better than average of course, but what we've seen here is completely consistent with chance. CALPERS, the largest public pension fund in the US, has recently taken all of its investments out of hedge funds.
and none of them are really growing and Gas and oil is not a good example, everyone needs to buy gas for now that is so it low risk to be one trick pony. However, you do not need an apple product or as some would like to believe, apple is easily replaces with another tech company solution. Yeah same is true for gas and oil, they tried to make people brand loyal to gas, does not work well unless your a NASCAR fan and you buy the gas they use and will drive miles to get it. Gas companies will always make money.
The problem is the people running wall street and driving large investment decisions are still operating in the 90's and were burned during the dot com bust and believe company diversification is best, They see google as diversified as well as amazon. But what these idiots do not realize, More companies are splitting apart, this is how Ichan is making his money forcing larger companies to split apart even it that means all the pieces fall apart later. The more focus companies are doing far better than the big conglomerates. But for wall street is hard to manage risk with smaller focus companies than the big guy into everything.
Face it a large % of people on wall street are not risk takers they, they see risk takers end up in jail these days.
You know why this happen, what I read is they stayed away from the top earning stocks in those years Apple being one of them. At this point I think it is going to happen again in 2015.
Over the last few year I moved most of my money out of mutual funds and into single stocks because the funds were not keeping up with the broader market. Our government put so many restricting in place the fund guys can not do anything. I'll give you a simple example, I have a 529 for my kids, use to move the money around when the market was weak pull it out and put in money markets and when it turned around I would move in back into the market, the only way to protect from the down side, two year ago the feds put in new rules only one investment change per year on 529 no longer allowed to move in and out of funds as you see fit. Same it true for 401k, unless it is just an auto balancing the portfolio. You are limited on how many transaction changes you can now make in a given period.
Today you can do far better by picking a few good companies and investing in them, verses finding a couple of good mutual funds, none of them seem to be keeping up.
Personally, I see a lot of risk buying Apple. Too much of their profit hinges on the iPhone. They've done well this year, due to a bigger phone which a lot of people wanted and it drew people from Android.
Really? Apple profit hinges on iPhone since the first iPhone...3-3S, 4-4S same screen, blown out sale, 5-5S, same screen, again blown out sale. The same will be from 6-6S and Apple continue to repeat this trend while their sale# keeps going up. Remember one thing: Apple have loyal customers, so the installed base is crazy good on upgrade cycle.
Many funds were fully loaded on Apple at the end of 2012, which is why, after the 73% rise in the stock price, they sold off for tax reasons. Less funds are fully loaded now, but we also have funds who couldn't buy in because Apple wasn't offering a dividend.
This ceiling represents a threat to Apple's stock price.
Regardless of how well Apple do, there is a limit to the share price because of the law of large numbers. The hedge fund ceiling is a manifestation of that law.
Balderdash. Apple is happily buying back its own horribly undervalued stock. The sky's the limit for AAPL.
I so t agree with this argument. I've been hearing similar things for years. As Cook said, after the last quarter, only 15% of iPhone users had upgraded. That leaves a large number left. But, close to 20% of sales are to people new to iPhone. That's 20% growth right there. Even if it's less, the more people who buy an iPhone, the more people who will upgrade. That's growth.
As far as your upgrade cycle goes, the vast majority of smartphone users around the world do upgrade every two years. In Asia, many upgrade every year, as a smartphone e there has more meaning than it does here. And where is the largest growing market?
Yeah, I read the financial sites, and sprague with the authors. Some are like you, too worried about iPhone percnetages. Don't worry. Apple clawed their way back into the world top spot, kicking, along with cheap manufacturers, Samsung out of thentop spot. And that's without a phone that costs less than $399 without contract. As we know, ablut 70% of Apple's phone sales are of the newest model(s). The cheaper, older ones just serve to get people to Apple.
Apple's msrp for phones went up this year, not down. it's abouut $690, vs. about $635 last year. That's an excellent sign.
You shouldn't invest.
This makes ZERO sense.
So these hedge funds won't buy more Apple but will buy more loser stocks to midigate risk? How is buying loser stocks helping?
Pure stupidity. If I wanted market gains I would just buy an index fund that cost virutally ZERO in fees.
If I'm paying a hedge fund 2% and 20% each year I expect much more. And that includes having the balls to be over-weight on stocks they think are winners.
Funds cannot go overweight on highly volatile stocks. Too much risk that their quarters might end up in lawsuits. Everyone who is responsible for managing billions is going to flee from risk to save their own skin.
I have to agree with you in these things. In fact, my last post pretty much did.
Google is an advertising agency. Everything they do is for the purpose of adding to places where they can place Ads. Exxon depends on international entities to price oil, and they have no control over that at all.
Actually, going by the record, you were unlucky to get out in mid 2012, if it was really mid 2012. You would have missed the peak. But it's so much higher now, and you missed the dividends from the beginning. You are happy about this?
you mention Apple's rumoured trade-in program for non-iPhones. if true, it's a great thing and a win-win for both customers and Apple not a negative as you paint it. Apple gets more profits on the trade-ins it would not have gotten before and does not have to lower prices to sell more iPhones, and the customer gets extra cash from an old phone that would have sat in a drawer
Apple's new Watch and ultrathin/ultralight 2 pound MacBook will sell out at launch and sell millions this year so it has many other growth prospects
Apple has grown a lot. People may be wondering if the machine is going to slow down. There are other stocks out there from other companies that don't have the popularity of Apple. Also, I don't watch TV (not for about 8 years) and I've never seen CNBC. I do read the WSJ on Saturdays. It's clear I didn't have any evidence for what I wrote. It's conjecture. I said "we don't know" what the future holds. I know enough about investing from reading John Bogle's books and Bogleheads and that's good enough for me. Some of us are busy with jobs and kids and don't have time to read company balance sheets. The point about phones (or whatever is sold): when there is saturation of the market, maybe you do have to lower your prices as your product has matured or you can't bring more customers over. Funny, right after I wrote about cheaper phones, over on another rumor site was a story about Apple having a trade-in program for competitor phones. It's another tactic to get people to buy the iPhone because the phone itself is not selling itself to these potential customers. Anyway, people make begin to feel that Apple's reach the top and the growth has been too good so maybe it's time to stop buying she stock and diversify. Apple is a bit of a one-trick pony financially as the vast majority of its profits come from the iPhone. Google is more than search. Google's about information and that can be worth a lot of money. Search is incidental. Again, that's conjecture based on reading what can be found online anywhere.
Wow, a lot of words to say absolutely nothing. Stop pretending you're objective or analytical. Every single one of your posts is extremely down at Apple, extremely negative and pessimistic about their future prospects, products, and leadership. I don't even know why you post here, or why you use Apple products, since you have such a consistently low opinion of the company. And if you seriously believe Apple has no growth left, you severely lack imagination. Thankfully, those at Apple have alot more of that than you do.
The Apple brand has so much equity, so much brand power, that they can choose to get into any industry they wish, and as long as they make a good product, they can at the very least be successful in that industry, if not dominate. One does not need much imagination to see what these industries could be. Your line about Google being a more "diversified" company compared to Apple is also utterly hilarious. Apple controls the whole stack- The OS, the hardware, and the services. Every single product they sell is extremely successful. Hundreds of millions use both their mobile OS, they desktop OS, and their services. People adore the company. Name one successful, profitable Google hardware product? Their free OS is typically grotesquely modified by OEMs.
Most people don't give a shit about Google, beyond their search and email services. And yes, Google's business model is entirely dependant on search, and on attaining your information- something people are getting more concerned about. Apple will soon do almost everything that Google does (everything that people care about), while retaining your privacy. Google has tried and failed to "diversify" many times. Apple has succeeded almost every single time, and the possibilities are utterly endless (medical industry, fashion, automotive, etc). Looking back, the Apple of today might look pathetic in 5-10 years. It's sad that you can't see that, or choose not to.
What a ridiculous and insane statement to make after a quarter of Apple selling 75,000,000 phones, and a probably 60,000,000+ this quarter, typically a "slow" quarter. Yeah, they're just so desperate that they use this "tactic" because the phone is "not selling itself". That's quite the distortion of reality, and I wonder why you're so compelled to look at whatever Apple does through such a twisted lens. By that definition, Apple should never spend a dollar on marketing, because that would prove their products are not "selling themselves". This is a smart move that will pad sales to an even higher level, not some kind of desperation tactic as you so wish it to be.
Monday morning quarterbacking is a wasted exercise, Mel. I'm happy that I did well, but apparently you believe that with the benefit of history, I should be unhappy because I didn't do "well enough."
It's well documented in many places now that active fund managers are unable to beat the broader markets over time and few can pull it off even over short stretches. The remarkable thing is that so many investors remain willing to pay through the nose for this lack of performance. The other key to index fund investing is diversification and rebalancing, as this takes sector rotation into account, another market behavior that active managers have a poor track record in predicting. They often try to compensate through style drift, which can expose investors to more than the advertised risk for a given fund.
Not benefit of history. As many people here know, because it comes up almost every time we talk financial, since 2004, that I bought a load of Apple then, and I've held it, and bought some more in 2008. So I'm talking from experience, not from hindsight.
The problem most people have, is that they're simply afraid. They want to invest, so they do, but not on their own decision making. Mutual funds, hedge funds, managed accounts, all of these make make people feel as though the professionals, who after all, must know what they're doing, will do a better job for them than they would do for themselves.
And they're right! Most people would lose their investments if they made their own decisions. Another problem these people have, is that they know so little, that they're easily convinced to not worry, we'll take care of it for you. They also don't know how the market does each year, so if they're told that they made 8%, that seems great. After all, they may make a percent, if they're lucky, from their bank account, so that sounds great.
And yes, I know, they should learn about it. But this is way too complex and frightening for most people. Look at what the Bush administration wanted to do with Social Security. Individual accounts for people to invest for themselves. How dumb! And it was as though the administration didn't even know that SSI is for people,working now, not for yourself.
So what would happen if tens of millions of people lost their money in the market, and they were about to retire? The outcry would require the government to somehow pay for them anyway.
I don't want to get political about this, but the concept that people know enough to do their own investing, or often, even do research to find out the best way to invest is optimistic, at best. So I suppose for them, making significantly better than inflation is better then they could expect, if it eases their minds.
The problem most people have, is that they're simply afraid. They want to invest, so they do, but not on their own decision making. Mutual funds, hedge funds, managed accounts, all of these make make people feel as though the professionals, who after all, must know what they're doing, will do a better job for them than they would do for themselves.
And they're right! Most people would lose their investments if they made their own decisions. Another problem these people have, is that they know so little, that they're easily convinced to not worry, we'll take care of it for you. They also don't know how the market does each year, so if they're told that they made 8%, that seems great. After all, they may make a percent, if they're lucky, from their bank account, so that sounds great.
And yes, I know, they should learn about it. But this is way too complex and frightening for most people. Look at what the Bush administration wanted to do with Social Security. Individual accounts for people to invest for themselves. How dumb! And it was as though the administration didn't even know that SSI is for people,working now, not for yourself.
So what would happen if tens of millions of people lost their money in the market, and they were about to retire? The outcry would require the government to somehow pay for them anyway.
I don't want to get political about this, but the concept that people know enough to do their own investing, or often, even do research to find out the best way to invest is optimistic, at best. So I suppose for them, making significantly better than inflation is better then they could expect, if it eases their minds.
The general impression of investing is that it's either gambling or voodoo, so people with this idea don't invest. The other problem, equally wrong, is that individual investors buying stocks can readily beat the markets, so they either make bad investments, or try to time buying and selling. Two sides of the same coin. Others turn to professional managers.
One of the dirtiest secrets of professional management is that a great many of the people who peddle investment management do not have a fiduciary responsibility to their clients, so they may be only incidentally helping the client after they do what is in their own best interests. The other dirty secret is how many 401k managers work. They can charge enormous fees that the account holder doesn't even know about because the plans are selected and managed by their employers.
The best longterm strategy for most investors is drip investing into a balanced portfolio of ETFs. The fees are much lower, and the index funds will outperform active investing over time. The message on this is getting out, if only slowly.