Apple sells 47.5M iPhones in record-breaking Q3, revenue jumps 33% to $49.6B

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  • Reply 161 of 187
    dr millmossdr millmoss Posts: 5,403member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Aslo Higgens View Post



    Why does Apple have to grow? If they maintain the status quo, in 6 years they'll add 450 million in cash and basically can retire all of their stock.



    It is fundamentally not allowed for a public company to own itself.

  • Reply 162 of 187
    originalgoriginalg Posts: 383member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by ds92jz View Post

     

    Who's "we"? You are part of Apple?!




    To state the obvious, "we" are the shareholders and yes we are very much part of Apple.

  • Reply 163 of 187
    foggyhillfoggyhill Posts: 4,767member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by melgross View Post

     



    Actually, they do. After all, stock and P/E is a result of expectations of revenue and profits going forward. Apple gives an expectation of what that will be. If it's below what's expected, then the stock will drop. Match that to expected results for the reported quarter, and there you have it.

     

    Seriously, if this isn't understood, then people shouldn't be in the market.


     

    Right, you're actually acting like PE is actually a real number linked to real earnings instead of future imaginary ones.

     

    So, your telling me Amazon's PE is actually linked to present value of future earnings given an expected rate or return.... Hmmm.

     

    Either Amazon's going to have massive earnings eventually (not likely in retail with competition expanding by the minute and their position not strenghtening) or they'll magically invent a  high margin huge revenue industry, one they haven't though about in the last 20 years; people are taking amazing amount or risk for this minute chance of this massive profit (high rate of return required); or well, its all just a big ol' ponzi and the last one left with the stock when it tanks loses almost everything.

     

    I'm going for the third option for this stock, and most tech stocks. For those stocks, you don't really look at the company's anything, but how people "feel" about them. A market psychologist (if such a person could exist) is the best person to invest short term... It may be still worth while to invest in those tech companies, but with no expectation that the stock will track closely with a company's reality in the short term (in this case, finding good times to buy a fine stock when inevitable quasi random variation appears is the skill that's really needed).

     

    Stock price has been disconnected from the reality a long time ago; it's no more than gambling for most people.

    Having lost 125K in 2002-2003 (25% of my investment at the time). I learned many lessons the hard way.; I don't look at stock prices short term ever, even for tech firms.

     

    I invested heavily in the stock market since the early 1990s and I've heard every justifications for pricing of tech stocks under the sun.

    Actually worked in a very large startup at a senior level in the late 1990s in Silicon Valley (Freemont) and saw what kind of financial crap goes in tech firms and around tech firms. It aint pretty!

     

    Funny enough, the bigger a company is, and the more defined and less fuzzy the market is (hardware sales vs service) the harder it is for people to justify their delusion and shell game. That makes people nervous. You know reality, They don't often have to think about it when they trade stocks/buy lottery tickets.  That's why Apple's stock is depressed compared to other tech firms.

     

    In actuality, Apple's stock is only slightly below where I think it should be, it is the other stocks that are in wacko land.

  • Reply 164 of 187
    totaltotal Posts: 83member

    i found interese

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by anantksundaram View Post

     

    Did I hear that China was up 112%? If so, wow. Just wow.

     

    Cash of $200B+. And gross margins of ~40%. Incredible.


     

    yes so with cash 200B and current valuation about 700B (after sell off) AAPL has almost 30% of its market value in cash, do they really need to be on stock market? If the trend will continue, withing 2-3 years they will have more than 50% of their value in cash, what sense does it make?

  • Reply 165 of 187
    geekmeegeekmee Posts: 629member
    Let's face it.... Wall Street just can't guess it right.
  • Reply 166 of 187
    rogifanrogifan Posts: 10,669member
    This is the problem with being iPhone, Inc. Analysts always think Apple is one step away from disaster. iPhone demand is peaking and Apple has nothing to fill the iPhone void with. I don't agree with it but that seems to be the thinking. iPhone isn't a commodity like oil, Apple isn't a monopoly like Google. So anytime Wall Street gets the jitters about iPhone, especially if they have jitters about China, the stock gets punished. This is one reason I think Apple is working on some big stuff like a car. Things like ?Pay and ?TV and ?Music enhance the ecosystem and make it more sticky but I don't see them as huge revenue and profit drivers. Apple needs a big revenue driver. Maybe ?Watch will become one in the future?
  • Reply 167 of 187
    dr millmossdr millmoss Posts: 5,403member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by sog35 View Post

     

     

    I wish there was a way to take Apple out of the stock market.

     

    I'm not sure how that is possible with a $750B market cap but if anyone can figure it out it would be Apple.

     

    In fact if Apple just floated the rumor that they are thinking of going private (like Dell just did) I bet the stock would go up instantly.

     

    To take a company private it usually takes paying a premium.  So Apple would probably have to buyback all shares for $140-$160.  

     

    Personally I'd hold on to my shares and own Apple as private equity.  If they get enough shareholder votes Apple could go private.  At that point if you wanted to sell your shares there would probably have to be some type of private exchange controlled by Apple or an investment bank.

     

    The process of going private isn't very difficult.  I just wonder if it is possible to go private and still have millions of seperate shareholders?  Usually when companies go private there are only a few investments groups that buy up all the shares.




    Again, this is fundamentally not allowed. A public company cannot buy itself. Further, any company with over 500 shareholders must be traded publicly, according to SEC rules. So all of this is a pipe dream, without the pipe.

  • Reply 168 of 187
    ds92jzds92jz Posts: 90member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by OriginalG View Post

     



    To state the obvious, "we" are the shareholders and yes we are very much part of Apple.


     

    I'm a season ticket holder for several local sports team. I'm part of the "we" as well.

  • Reply 169 of 187
    originalgoriginalg Posts: 383member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by ds92jz View Post

     

     

    I'm a season ticket holder for several local sports team. I'm part of the "we" as well.




     

    Shareholders actually 'own' part of the company, they vote to decide on things like the board of directors so the "we" in the case I'm referring to can actually affect how the company runs. The company pays dividends to the shareholders. None of that applies to a ticket holder of a sports team. I'm not sure what your original point is. Shareholders are very much part of the company, they're not 3rd party spectators.

  • Reply 170 of 187
    wonkothesanewonkothesane Posts: 1,717member
    rogifan wrote: »
    This is the problem with being iPhone, Inc. Analysts always think Apple is one step away from disaster. iPhone demand is peaking and Apple has nothing to fill the iPhone void with. I don't agree with it but that seems to be the thinking. iPhone isn't a commodity like oil, Apple isn't a monopoly like Google. So anytime Wall Street gets the jitters about iPhone, especially if they have jitters about China, the stock gets punished. This is one reason I think Apple is working on some big stuff like a car. Things like ?Pay and ?TV and ?Music enhance the ecosystem and make it more sticky but I don't see them as huge revenue and profit drivers. Apple needs a big revenue driver. Maybe ?Watch will become one in the future?

    Apart from stock owners' interest: why does apple need a big revenue driver? Let's assume for a moment that the smart phone market saturated globally. And that iPhone sales have peaked out. And that actually the sales shrink due to competition or whatever. As long as the portfolio and numbers are healthy why would they have to perpetually grow? Why could they not be one day a stable if even not the biggest player in the markets where they are underway?
    No, I don't mean this as a fudamental capitalism vs something else statement.
  • Reply 171 of 187
    dr millmossdr millmoss Posts: 5,403member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by WonkoTheSane View Post





    Apart from stock owners' interest: why does apple need a big revenue driver? Let's assume for a moment that the smart phone market saturated globally. And that iPhone sales have peaked out. And that actually the sales shrink due to competition or whatever. As long as the portfolio and numbers are healthy why would they have to perpetually grow? Why could they not be one day a stable if even not the biggest player in the markets where they are underway?

    No, I don't mean this as a fudamental capitalism vs something else statement.



    You may not mean it as such, but that is the statement you are making. Companies exist to grow. Any company that doesn't exist to grow, dies.

  • Reply 172 of 187
    wonkothesanewonkothesane Posts: 1,717member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Dr Millmoss View Post

     



    You may not mean it as such, but that is the statement you are making. Companies exist to grow. Any company that doesn't exist to grow, dies.




    So, ultimately, as in Highlander "there can only be one"? ;-) Weyland-Yutani et. al?

    I am sure we can agree on that in the end all will die, and that before that there will be stagnation due to limit growth.

    Now, taken these points for granted, there is still a very long way until this time, and as of now I see a number of quite stable "patt" situations, where everyone seems to be fine with the market share they have. Eg. Boeing and Airbus. Yes, eventually there will be competition from China and India, possibly Russia, but for decades this has been a quite comfortable situation for both.

    I am no economist, let a lone analyst, but I am really curious about your statement, that without growth you definitely will wither and disappear as a company. As I said, I talk about a scenario where the smartphone market is fully saturated, and there is no conceivable revolution in innovation, just evolution, so no one gains a significant advantage. Let's assume just for a sec that this holds long time. Then why on earth would they have to grow if they can pay their bills, and put some cash to the side?

     

    I guess in the end what I like to express is that we all know that the day will come where the next iteration of the iPhone or the next quarterly results will not exceed the previous one, but level out and eventually decline. I say: So what. It is not the end of the earth, neither the end of Apple. Even IF the watch would be a huge fail (which I do not believe it constitutes) this IMHO is no catastrophy. As long as they maintain their spirit and innovate and try other things they do not need to become market leader in all what they do.

     

    Which, for some funny reason, is already ensured by FTC and others that if Apple makes a product and offers a service with this, no one has an issue with their terms and conditions, but as soon as they are vastly successful all of a sudden we hear the outcry "monopoly! boo! unfair!". But that is an altogether different story...

  • Reply 173 of 187
    dr millmossdr millmoss Posts: 5,403member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by WonkoTheSane View Post

     

    I am no economist, let a lone analyst, but I am really curious about your statement, that without growth you definitely will wither and disappear as a company. As I said, I talk about a scenario where the smartphone market is fully saturated, and there is no conceivable revolution in innovation, just evolution, so no one gains a significant advantage. Let's assume just for a sec that this holds long time. Then why on earth would they have to grow if they can pay their bills, and put some cash to the side?


     

    So you are thinking, maybe technology could become a low or no-growth industry? Stagnation in any sector historically leads either to the sector's disappearance entirely, or at the very least, to a shakeout, from which few of the players survive. As an investor you are definitely worried about that scenario.

  • Reply 174 of 187
    But there is no SEC rule of buying back, say, 95% of outstanding shares is there?
  • Reply 175 of 187
    dasanman69dasanman69 Posts: 13,002member
    Apart from stock owners' interest: why does apple need a big revenue driver? Let's assume for a moment that the smart phone market saturated globally. And that iPhone sales have peaked out. And that actually the sales shrink due to competition or whatever. As long as the portfolio and numbers are healthy why would they have to perpetually grow? Why could they not be one day a stable if even not the biggest player in the markets where they are underway?

    No, I don't mean this as a fudamental capitalism vs something else statement.


    You may not mean it as such, but that is the statement you are making. Companies exist to grow. Any company that doesn't exist to grow, dies.

    That's not true at all. Not every company can grow all the time. Many companies that have been around for a long time go through fluctuations of growth and decline.
  • Reply 176 of 187
    wonkothesanewonkothesane Posts: 1,717member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Dr Millmoss View Post

     

     

    So you are thinking, maybe technology could become a low or no-growth industry? Stagnation in any sector historically leads either to the sector's disappearance entirely, or at the very least, to a shakeout, from which few of the players survive. As an investor you are definitely worried about that scenario.




    As an investor, of course, I strive for a monopolistic scenario. And that there are victims in the context of "market consolidation" is clear to me as well. What I am driving at is the - to me - unrealistic expectation that whatever Apple does, it has to excel, even not "just grow". There are many big and long-lasting companies in the Fortune 500, but it seems only Apple is required to prove itself in this extreme way, unlike Goolge, Facebook, just to name two from a similar field. Personally, I sometimes feel that WallStreet doesn't like Apple and is suspicious about the company due to their way of "thinking differently", as though behind it all they are a small garage shop filled with hippies from the 70s. sigh....

  • Reply 177 of 187
    dr millmossdr millmoss Posts: 5,403member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by WonkoTheSane View Post

     



    As an investor, of course, I strive for a monopolistic scenario. And that there are victims in the context of "market consolidation" is clear to me as well. What I am driving at is the - to me - unrealistic expectation that whatever Apple does, it has to excel, even not "just grow". There are many big and long-lasting companies in the Fortune 500, but it seems only Apple is required to prove itself in this extreme way, unlike Goolge, Facebook, just to name two from a similar field. Personally, I sometimes feel that WallStreet doesn't like Apple and is suspicious about the company due to their way of "thinking differently", as though behind it all they are a small garage shop filled with hippies from the 70s. sigh....




    I follow what you mean, and it does often seem like Apple is held to a different standard. Yet it may not be quite as different as you think. Facebook is new to the public equity markets but you may recall that their IPO hardly went smoothly. If fact the stock went into the dumper shortly after the IPO and it stayed there for quite awhile. Facebook had something to prove to investors, and that was their ability to report and grow earnings. Likewise, GOOG hasn't exactly been a great investment over the last year or so. The growing impression (well deserved, IMO) was of a company lacking in focus and discipline. Only very recently have investors taken any heart that maybe they will finally start to trim their expenses. The stock got a good boost out of that but I would say they are not entirely out of the woods on their reputation for profligate spending. Changing that image will require at least a couple quarters of show-me.

     

    As far as Apple is concerned, the expectations are indeed high, but then so has been their performance over the past 15 years. They are now the undisputed leader in the tech industry. That is their mantle to bear, like it or not. Investors will be on the constant lookout for signs that they are getting fat and lazy or are being lapped by the competition. Comes with the territory.

  • Reply 178 of 187
    dr millmossdr millmoss Posts: 5,403member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by dasanman69 View Post





    That's not true at all. Not every company can grow all the time. Many companies that have been around for a long time go through fluctuations of growth and decline.



    Granted some companies survive periods of decline, but they are the exception. The list of those that don't is far longer.

  • Reply 179 of 187
    joshajosha Posts: 901member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by WelshDog View Post



    And the stock has dropped 8% after hours. Mr. Market does not understand Apple, never will.



    Sure they understand Apple as a good (insider) up and down play. 

    Real tech products they can play speculation  on.

    Normal investors aren't part of this game playing.

     

    Google is a different story. 

    Google doesn't make significant products they sell, Google simply makes software to spy on us for their advertisers.

    Since USA business is doing very well, advertising to trap/ switch us into the advertisers product is king !

  • Reply 180 of 187
    yojimbo007yojimbo007 Posts: 1,165member
    Excellent argument. You don't get it, so anyone who does, is living under a rock.

    My first question to u was to elaborate...
    Got an upity answer from you.... And you claimed nothing strange has happened...... And that Itis the ignorance of others that dont get it !

    Maybe you should study a bit more .. And inform yourself.....
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