You can deny the historical pattern of boom and bust, but it will raise you up and crush you just the same.
Nobody is denying the pattern of boom and bust. What you are ignoring is that the boom periods have far outweighed the bust. If you are invested for the long term, even if you suffer through a bust, you make it back during the boom (and then some, if you continue to invest during the bust).
Quote:
Originally Posted by augur
At best, you survive, and it is even worse for your kids.
"At best you survive"? I've done very well, and I don't consider myself anything close to best case scenario. And hos is it "worse for your kids"??
Quote:
Originally Posted by augur
The stock is down: Buy more!
The stock is up: Buy more!
Don't sell your stock, Buy more!
Buy More! Buy More! Buy More!
Sounds stupid because it's a straw man.
So I'm dying to know...if the stock market is a "ponzi scheme" then what are you investing in instead?
So if the stock market is out, what do you invest in? If anything.
I'm out. I decided to do an honest day's work for an honest day's pay. (Or at least as close as I can get.)
It's amazing watching all the joy and angst that people experience because of numbers that fluctuate. It controls their mood, their politics, their happiness.
Yes, it is a big "if," but i have tested and retested my theories. Actually, interest is only half of the problem. (Profit is the other half.)
There is no such thing as political equality when the world is divided by rich and poor. We are only as strong as the weakest link. The weak pull down the strong, but it is the middle (what Marx called the bourgeoisie) that is the biggest problem. They try to be like the rich, when the better strategy is to figure out why there are poor. (Marx failed miserably, choosing blame instead of math.) In fact, even the poor try to be like the rich.
A system of competition must have a loser. The biggest losers are always the next generation; they are always the weakest financially, and they inherit all the inflation, pollution, and bad habits of the previous generation. We were indoctrinated, and we indoctrinate, but a lie thousands of years old is still a lie. Habit and tradition are not automatically valid choices.
2+2=5 is bad math. So 5=2+2 (bust) MUST follow. There is a way to live in a better balance (I do much better than before) but it does require that old cliche: Think Different.
I'm out. I decided to do an honest day's work for an honest day's pay. (Or at least as close as I can get.)
Wow, you seriously expect to be able to retire someday by just stashing away what you make and not investing it at all? That doesn't even keep up with inflation, you're losing money if you do that. Do you even have a savings account, or is that just more "2+2=5"? Or do you oppose retirement on moral grounds as well?
You're pretty much arguing that the whole concept of businesses growing doesn't exist.
Which is comical considering all the businesses that have proved that notion wrong by...you know, growing?
Exactly. And one might add: How is wealth created? Spread around? Bequeathed?
Heard of Buffett? The Gates Foundation?
The volatility is really messing with people's minds, and bringing out some weird viewpoints.
I have been explaining the same problem for years, but now that what I predicted is coming to pass, suddenly my "weird viewpoint" is making more sense to some people. The prophet was always a heretic first. I've been banned in so many places that I've lost count, simply for challenging people's economic beliefs.
Buffet and Gates are not giving anything "back" that they did not first steal. Philanthropy is simply hypocrisy, they want a trumpet and a parade when they drop a penny of their excess in the poorbox. Moreover, most philanthropists continue to steal with one hand while giving it away with the other. It is doublethink, or worse. In fact, they/we were taught to do this as a child. I can show you the literature where we teach kids to be charitable to the poor, and at the same time teach them to lend for interest, which is to take advantage of the poor.
Bono, Gates, Buffet, etc. They are all HUGE hypocrites. I was a hypocrite too, but now I am less of one. (I am not sure it is possible to avoid completely.)
Their very existence Is a sign of a problem, but they did not create the system, either. They just perpetuate the lie, they did not author it.
If you notice, most rich people give their money to organizations. Like Buffett giving his money to the Gates Foundation. How absurd. That is not charity. It doesn't raise up the poor, it just moves the money from one organization to another. The non-profits (universities, foundations, etc) are as hypocritical as the for-profits and the politicians. They all feather their nest, build themselves a church, and lock out the poor, and keep asking for more for themselves.
Sad isn't it? The mirror is an ugly place when you see yourself for the first time.
The love of money has never served men well. I no longer love money. I see what it is, and use it as a tool, rather than as a weapon. Because people are afraid, they use it as a weapon. Once they start (and again they were indoctrinated this way) it is hard to stop. But you can if you try. Of course, you first must know that you should try. :-)
Remember the old cigarette ads with doctors telling people to smoke? We are doing the same thing with "financial literacy." We are teaching cancerous ideas.
Wow, you seriously expect to be able to retire someday by just stashing away what you make and not investing it at all? That doesn't even keep up with inflation, you're losing money if you do that. Do you even have a savings account, or is that just more "2+2=5"? Or do you oppose retirement on moral grounds as well?
You're pretty much arguing that the whole concept of businesses growing doesn't exist.
Which is comical considering all the businesses that have proved that notion wrong by...you know, growing?
I am more concerned with the world I leave for my children than retiring early.
And, again, you are only looking at the beginning of the business cycle, not the entire cycle. People keep talking about "sustainable growth," when what we need is 'sustainable consumption." We already have too much growth. We make stuff just to throw it away. We are drowning in our waste and "growth."
I don't have to "retire," because I have never really been a slave. I have been self-employed most of my life. I just follow my heart. I'll retire when it stops beating.
I don't have to "retire," because I have never really been a slave. I have been self-employed most of my life. I just follow my heart. I'll retire when it stops beating.
Translation: "I will never retire because I will never be able to afford to."
Wow, you seriously expect to be able to retire someday by just stashing away what you make and not investing it at all? That doesn't even keep up with inflation, you're losing money if you do that. Do you even have a savings account, or is that just more "2+2=5"? Or do you oppose retirement on moral grounds as well?
You're pretty much arguing that the whole concept of businesses growing doesn't exist.
Which is comical considering all the businesses that have proved that notion wrong by...you know, growing?
Actually he's bringing some very interesting philosphical perspective into things, even if you disagree with the details. Just think it through... Most people live for the moment, and yes, in this particular moment we just see a vector. But generally - it's true, nothing lasts forever - fuel, money, everything will be gone. It's a very fragile world built upon a very fragile foundation. Believing in this like it's some sort of God is wrong.
I am more concerned with the world I leave for my children than retiring early.
And, again, you are only looking at the beginning of the business cycle, not the entire cycle. People keep talking about "sustainable growth," when what we need is 'sustainable consumption." We already have too much growth. We make stuff just to throw it away. We are drowning in our waste and "growth."
I don't have to "retire," because I have never really been a slave. I have been self-employed most of my life. I just follow my heart. I'll retire when it stops beating.
Auger, my friend, I have found the perfect place for you where people will better understand your economic theory's.
Stupid analysts. They're always bullish, even in the worst bear markets.
Strong buy = Maybe, just maybe, you should buy
Buy = Hold
Hold = Sell
Sell = Bankruptcy imminent! Sell short!
Look at what the US economy, do you really think that Apple's 2008 revenues will be as good as 2007 when the economy is sinking and the stock market is hitting new lows? No, consumer spending will tighten and the MacBook Air will be a huge flop.
If Apple were not run by autistic, financially and otherwise, this would not have happened.
I mean, the FED spends billions in holding the market up and then comes Apple and, in all its seriousness of a choir boy who is better than everybody else, all with their hair well combed, comes and puts out a pessimistic forecast?
Apple has brought the market down in spite of the FED's efforts! It dragged Google, Amazon and other blue chip companies consolidating that sense of doom that is spreading around!
What a lousy sense of opportunity! And guess what, Incorporating, i.e. putting one's own company in the stock market, is all about opportunity and having a financial management different from your typical grocery store! It's all about opportunity!
I'm a die hard fan of Apple's and Steve Jobs but seems to me they're losing it big time with their latest tendency to limit, close, isolate, silent, constrict and become proprietary. In a word - rigidity!
They do not listen to their clients, they think they're still in the good ol days of fooling around with computer chips and setting up gadgets for their own amusement.
Talk about lack of sense of opportunity - a MacBook Air? I mean, it's a great gadget but what the company needed right now was a new product placement re iPods, i.e. lowering iPod Touch some $100 and announcing the iTablet as something between iPhone and MacBook Air, maybe announcing a new iPod Touch with fewer features than current model. All this in view of client's satisfaction and the down cycle of the iPod which is beginning its EOL turn in the fashion it exists today.
MacBook Air with no 3G? No always online? What gives? This product would perhaps be nice to be announced next September because of all the emotional buying that goes around in Xmas, not now! Having said that, YES, Apple had no new product to show at Macworld. I don't care if they had to tighten their lips about the amazing products they're building in their garage, it was all about opportunity and the lack thereof.
Sense of opportunity? Yes, remember the $200 iPhone price lowering? Remember the market's reaction to Steve's $100 early adopter compensation? Remember all the absence & silence of Steve & Co when the times need for extraordinary PR and being totally in touch with one's customers?
If they would be any good, in face of the present disaster, Steve would come out of his shell and announce the company is buying back a few zillion shares to prove confidence in their own company and up its stock price. In the process they would probably still make a buck. That is, if the US doesn't play war games with Iran next Spring which they just might do!
But no, Steve is going to stay silent and autist, Oppenheimer & Co will keep smiling to their families waving around the millions they've gotten for Xmas in cash & shares just before inducing today's market crash. You putz!
Apple should have a dedicated PR team that would include people paid for the sole purpose of reading Mac users forums just like this, not to mention real PR speakers.
They should come out frequently with announcements and statements so that they would appease their clients and shareholders needs for information and attention.
Apple is not just another company. It has been blessed with an amazing faithful following, it's not a fridge selling or box moving company! Why don't they recognize who / what they are?!
Maybe it's too late for that. Anyhow, I think they are getting worse and worse in their predicament, or so it seems. The market at least expressed it that way...
Apple execs know that after a day or two to absorb the earnings, including updating the PE ratios lower because of blowout earnings, the market usually pushes the stock higher despite their usual lowball bull guidance...even if that guidance was really not that low.
And why shouldn't it? Earnings grew about 57%. Mac sales exploded upwards; a whole new generation of mac owners(over 50% of the new macs boiught at mac stores are new to mac) will
now need to buy everything mac like the rest of us whom have had macs for years. Even the ipod grew in numbers despite some people buying the iphone instead of a stand alone ipod. And the average retail price and revenue from ipods grew even faster than the numbers since Apple has managed to get people to upgrade their ipods to the touch model.
And the future looks even brighter! In the computer world, laptops are THE hot thing and replacing the desktop and Apple now has the primo of all laptops with the Air. People have been holding off buying an Apple laptop because they knew this was coming. Iphones will be
3G this year, will be sold in many more countries, can now be used on corporate accounts, and
will probably be available in new models and very likely with double the data storage. Apple TV should bounce back now that there is content in HD and movie rentals. Universal should be back with their tv shows and add even more to the rapid increase in content available on itunes
especially with the movie rentals now available.
Yes, the future looks bright, no matter how the economy performs.
I mean, the FED spends billions in holding the market up and then comes Apple and, in all its seriousness of a choir boy who is better than everybody else, all with their hair well combed, comes and puts out a pessimistic forecast?
Apple has brought the market down in spite of the FED's efforts! It dragged Google, Amazon and other blue chip companies consolidating that sense of doom that is spreading around!
Just to be clear, you're kidding, right?
You do realize that before apple's announcement, the market has been consistently down? Since october, the dow is down two THOUSAND points.
Nah, he just sounds like someone who bought Apple at $180 and needs to vent. It's pretty remarkable that someone would lay the blame for the current market problems at Apple's doorstep given the prior huge meltdown in the financial services sector. Were people really buying into the crap that these problems would not necessarily spill over into the consumer market.
Apple's drop is partly a correction to the mindless inflation of its stock price (I got a laugh out of the prediction for AAPL to see $600 in a year's time) and, unfortunately, a portent of a larger correction across the markets, in general.
I actually disagree that Apple's choice to not initiate a stock buyback shows lack of confidence in the company. To the contrary, Apple is saying that they have full confidence in Apple's existing and future products to keep the company financially healthy.
Too many buybacks are nothing more than camouflage for poor decision-making in the executive office and boardroom. Sure, they provide cover for people who are short but, other than boosting EPS, they do not address a company's real problems and add no value to the company.
I'm relatively new to the stock market, and have been dreaming of owning my own AAPL since last October, and now I'm kicking myself in the ass for not buying it then... However, I don't exactly have a ton of cash lying around, nor do I know how to get it. I do not want to pass up this chance at what could potentially be the lowest point the stock will get in a very long while. Because I honestly believe it will reach an even higher zenith at a future point in time. What would be a recommendation to enter the stock market? With a company that I truly love. (I have 9 Apple products and use them all).
Comments
The roaring 20's were great until 1929.
You can deny the historical pattern of boom and bust, but it will raise you up and crush you just the same.
Nobody is denying the pattern of boom and bust. What you are ignoring is that the boom periods have far outweighed the bust. If you are invested for the long term, even if you suffer through a bust, you make it back during the boom (and then some, if you continue to invest during the bust).
At best, you survive, and it is even worse for your kids.
"At best you survive"? I've done very well, and I don't consider myself anything close to best case scenario. And hos is it "worse for your kids"??
The stock is down: Buy more!
The stock is up: Buy more!
Don't sell your stock, Buy more!
Buy More! Buy More! Buy More!
Sounds stupid because it's a straw man.
So I'm dying to know...if the stock market is a "ponzi scheme" then what are you investing in instead?
"At best you survive"? I've done very well, and I don't consider myself anything close to best case scenario. And how is it "worse for your kids"??
If I could show that you are leaving a worse world for your kids than the one you inherited, would you have the courage to leave the stock market?
Which do you love more, your money or your kids?
If I could show that you are leaving a worse world for your kids than the one you inherited, would you have the courage to leave the stock market?
That's an awfully big if.
So if the stock market is out, what do you invest in? If anything.
That's an awfully big if.
So if the stock market is out, what do you invest in? If anything.
Exactly. And one might add: How is wealth created? Spread around? Bequeathed?
Heard of Buffett? The Gates Foundation?
That's an awfully big if.
So if the stock market is out, what do you invest in? If anything.
I'm out. I decided to do an honest day's work for an honest day's pay. (Or at least as close as I can get.)
It's amazing watching all the joy and angst that people experience because of numbers that fluctuate. It controls their mood, their politics, their happiness.
Yes, it is a big "if," but i have tested and retested my theories. Actually, interest is only half of the problem. (Profit is the other half.)
There is no such thing as political equality when the world is divided by rich and poor. We are only as strong as the weakest link. The weak pull down the strong, but it is the middle (what Marx called the bourgeoisie) that is the biggest problem. They try to be like the rich, when the better strategy is to figure out why there are poor. (Marx failed miserably, choosing blame instead of math.) In fact, even the poor try to be like the rich.
A system of competition must have a loser. The biggest losers are always the next generation; they are always the weakest financially, and they inherit all the inflation, pollution, and bad habits of the previous generation. We were indoctrinated, and we indoctrinate, but a lie thousands of years old is still a lie. Habit and tradition are not automatically valid choices.
2+2=5 is bad math. So 5=2+2 (bust) MUST follow. There is a way to live in a better balance (I do much better than before) but it does require that old cliche: Think Different.
I'm out. I decided to do an honest day's work for an honest day's pay. (Or at least as close as I can get.)
Wow, you seriously expect to be able to retire someday by just stashing away what you make and not investing it at all? That doesn't even keep up with inflation, you're losing money if you do that. Do you even have a savings account, or is that just more "2+2=5"? Or do you oppose retirement on moral grounds as well?
You're pretty much arguing that the whole concept of businesses growing doesn't exist.
Which is comical considering all the businesses that have proved that notion wrong by...you know, growing?
Exactly. And one might add: How is wealth created? Spread around? Bequeathed?
Heard of Buffett? The Gates Foundation?
I have been explaining the same problem for years, but now that what I predicted is coming to pass, suddenly my "weird viewpoint" is making more sense to some people. The prophet was always a heretic first. I've been banned in so many places that I've lost count, simply for challenging people's economic beliefs.
Buffet and Gates are not giving anything "back" that they did not first steal. Philanthropy is simply hypocrisy, they want a trumpet and a parade when they drop a penny of their excess in the poorbox. Moreover, most philanthropists continue to steal with one hand while giving it away with the other. It is doublethink, or worse. In fact, they/we were taught to do this as a child. I can show you the literature where we teach kids to be charitable to the poor, and at the same time teach them to lend for interest, which is to take advantage of the poor.
Bono, Gates, Buffet, etc. They are all HUGE hypocrites. I was a hypocrite too, but now I am less of one. (I am not sure it is possible to avoid completely.)
Their very existence Is a sign of a problem, but they did not create the system, either. They just perpetuate the lie, they did not author it.
If you notice, most rich people give their money to organizations. Like Buffett giving his money to the Gates Foundation. How absurd. That is not charity. It doesn't raise up the poor, it just moves the money from one organization to another. The non-profits (universities, foundations, etc) are as hypocritical as the for-profits and the politicians. They all feather their nest, build themselves a church, and lock out the poor, and keep asking for more for themselves.
Sad isn't it? The mirror is an ugly place when you see yourself for the first time.
The love of money has never served men well. I no longer love money. I see what it is, and use it as a tool, rather than as a weapon. Because people are afraid, they use it as a weapon. Once they start (and again they were indoctrinated this way) it is hard to stop. But you can if you try. Of course, you first must know that you should try. :-)
Remember the old cigarette ads with doctors telling people to smoke? We are doing the same thing with "financial literacy." We are teaching cancerous ideas.
what I predicted is coming to pass
And what exactly did you predict that is coming to pass?
Wow, you seriously expect to be able to retire someday by just stashing away what you make and not investing it at all? That doesn't even keep up with inflation, you're losing money if you do that. Do you even have a savings account, or is that just more "2+2=5"? Or do you oppose retirement on moral grounds as well?
You're pretty much arguing that the whole concept of businesses growing doesn't exist.
Which is comical considering all the businesses that have proved that notion wrong by...you know, growing?
I am more concerned with the world I leave for my children than retiring early.
And, again, you are only looking at the beginning of the business cycle, not the entire cycle. People keep talking about "sustainable growth," when what we need is 'sustainable consumption." We already have too much growth. We make stuff just to throw it away. We are drowning in our waste and "growth."
I don't have to "retire," because I have never really been a slave. I have been self-employed most of my life. I just follow my heart. I'll retire when it stops beating.
I don't have to "retire," because I have never really been a slave. I have been self-employed most of my life. I just follow my heart. I'll retire when it stops beating.
Translation: "I will never retire because I will never be able to afford to."
Wow, you seriously expect to be able to retire someday by just stashing away what you make and not investing it at all? That doesn't even keep up with inflation, you're losing money if you do that. Do you even have a savings account, or is that just more "2+2=5"? Or do you oppose retirement on moral grounds as well?
You're pretty much arguing that the whole concept of businesses growing doesn't exist.
Which is comical considering all the businesses that have proved that notion wrong by...you know, growing?
Actually he's bringing some very interesting philosphical perspective into things, even if you disagree with the details. Just think it through... Most people live for the moment, and yes, in this particular moment we just see a vector. But generally - it's true, nothing lasts forever - fuel, money, everything will be gone. It's a very fragile world built upon a very fragile foundation. Believing in this like it's some sort of God is wrong.
I am more concerned with the world I leave for my children than retiring early.
And, again, you are only looking at the beginning of the business cycle, not the entire cycle. People keep talking about "sustainable growth," when what we need is 'sustainable consumption." We already have too much growth. We make stuff just to throw it away. We are drowning in our waste and "growth."
I don't have to "retire," because I have never really been a slave. I have been self-employed most of my life. I just follow my heart. I'll retire when it stops beating.
Auger, my friend, I have found the perfect place for you where people will better understand your economic theory's.
http://www.coasttocoastam.com/
And what exactly did you predict that is coming to pass?
The mortgage meltdown, for one. And I didn't even know about subprime lending.
Some other things, too.
The more interesting thing is that I have been able to predict the past. I have been able to see and effect, and confirm the existence of the cause.
My theories are pretty tight at this point, although I keep testing them.
History is a crime scene. Every crime has a motive. Every motive has an idea behind it. Ideas have roots.
I'm just a good detective, that's all.
Strong buy = Maybe, just maybe, you should buy
Buy = Hold
Hold = Sell
Sell = Bankruptcy imminent! Sell short!
Look at what the US economy, do you really think that Apple's 2008 revenues will be as good as 2007 when the economy is sinking and the stock market is hitting new lows? No, consumer spending will tighten and the MacBook Air will be a huge flop.
I mean, the FED spends billions in holding the market up and then comes Apple and, in all its seriousness of a choir boy who is better than everybody else, all with their hair well combed, comes and puts out a pessimistic forecast?
Apple has brought the market down in spite of the FED's efforts! It dragged Google, Amazon and other blue chip companies consolidating that sense of doom that is spreading around!
What a lousy sense of opportunity! And guess what, Incorporating, i.e. putting one's own company in the stock market, is all about opportunity and having a financial management different from your typical grocery store! It's all about opportunity!
I'm a die hard fan of Apple's and Steve Jobs but seems to me they're losing it big time with their latest tendency to limit, close, isolate, silent, constrict and become proprietary. In a word - rigidity!
They do not listen to their clients, they think they're still in the good ol days of fooling around with computer chips and setting up gadgets for their own amusement.
Talk about lack of sense of opportunity - a MacBook Air? I mean, it's a great gadget but what the company needed right now was a new product placement re iPods, i.e. lowering iPod Touch some $100 and announcing the iTablet as something between iPhone and MacBook Air, maybe announcing a new iPod Touch with fewer features than current model. All this in view of client's satisfaction and the down cycle of the iPod which is beginning its EOL turn in the fashion it exists today.
MacBook Air with no 3G? No always online? What gives? This product would perhaps be nice to be announced next September because of all the emotional buying that goes around in Xmas, not now! Having said that, YES, Apple had no new product to show at Macworld. I don't care if they had to tighten their lips about the amazing products they're building in their garage, it was all about opportunity and the lack thereof.
Sense of opportunity? Yes, remember the $200 iPhone price lowering? Remember the market's reaction to Steve's $100 early adopter compensation? Remember all the absence & silence of Steve & Co when the times need for extraordinary PR and being totally in touch with one's customers?
If they would be any good, in face of the present disaster, Steve would come out of his shell and announce the company is buying back a few zillion shares to prove confidence in their own company and up its stock price. In the process they would probably still make a buck. That is, if the US doesn't play war games with Iran next Spring which they just might do!
But no, Steve is going to stay silent and autist, Oppenheimer & Co will keep smiling to their families waving around the millions they've gotten for Xmas in cash & shares just before inducing today's market crash. You putz!
They should come out frequently with announcements and statements so that they would appease their clients and shareholders needs for information and attention.
Apple is not just another company. It has been blessed with an amazing faithful following, it's not a fridge selling or box moving company! Why don't they recognize who / what they are?!
Maybe it's too late for that. Anyhow, I think they are getting worse and worse in their predicament, or so it seems. The market at least expressed it that way...
And why shouldn't it? Earnings grew about 57%. Mac sales exploded upwards; a whole new generation of mac owners(over 50% of the new macs boiught at mac stores are new to mac) will
now need to buy everything mac like the rest of us whom have had macs for years. Even the ipod grew in numbers despite some people buying the iphone instead of a stand alone ipod. And the average retail price and revenue from ipods grew even faster than the numbers since Apple has managed to get people to upgrade their ipods to the touch model.
And the future looks even brighter! In the computer world, laptops are THE hot thing and replacing the desktop and Apple now has the primo of all laptops with the Air. People have been holding off buying an Apple laptop because they knew this was coming. Iphones will be
3G this year, will be sold in many more countries, can now be used on corporate accounts, and
will probably be available in new models and very likely with double the data storage. Apple TV should bounce back now that there is content in HD and movie rentals. Universal should be back with their tv shows and add even more to the rapid increase in content available on itunes
especially with the movie rentals now available.
Yes, the future looks bright, no matter how the economy performs.
I mean, the FED spends billions in holding the market up and then comes Apple and, in all its seriousness of a choir boy who is better than everybody else, all with their hair well combed, comes and puts out a pessimistic forecast?
Apple has brought the market down in spite of the FED's efforts! It dragged Google, Amazon and other blue chip companies consolidating that sense of doom that is spreading around!
Just to be clear, you're kidding, right?
You do realize that before apple's announcement, the market has been consistently down? Since october, the dow is down two THOUSAND points.
And actually today the market is UP not down.
Just to be clear, you're kidding, right?
Nah, he just sounds like someone who bought Apple at $180 and needs to vent. It's pretty remarkable that someone would lay the blame for the current market problems at Apple's doorstep given the prior huge meltdown in the financial services sector. Were people really buying into the crap that these problems would not necessarily spill over into the consumer market.
Apple's drop is partly a correction to the mindless inflation of its stock price (I got a laugh out of the prediction for AAPL to see $600 in a year's time) and, unfortunately, a portent of a larger correction across the markets, in general.
I actually disagree that Apple's choice to not initiate a stock buyback shows lack of confidence in the company. To the contrary, Apple is saying that they have full confidence in Apple's existing and future products to keep the company financially healthy.
Too many buybacks are nothing more than camouflage for poor decision-making in the executive office and boardroom. Sure, they provide cover for people who are short but, other than boosting EPS, they do not address a company's real problems and add no value to the company.