But that does not matter. It can be easily be defeated and has ALREADY been defeated many times by having a MUTUAL fund be the shareholder of RECORD. There are many private companies that actually have over 2,000 owners because they sold shares to a Mutual fund who in turn sell the shares to tens of thousands of investors. The Mutual fund is counted as ONE owner of record.
This is true with most public stocks. For example Scottrade may have tens of thousand of clients who own Apple shares. But none of those clients are owners of RECORD. The only owner of RECORD is Scottrade.
Read this article that explains how the 2000/500 owner of record can be easily defeated:
"But in the case of most public companies, shares for most investors are not usually held of record but beneficially. In such instances, the shares are held of record by a third party, usually a broker, on behalf of the shareholder. For example, if you buy shares throughCharles Schwab, that discount brokerage firm will serve as the record owner and you will be the beneficial owner. The shares are held this way for administration ease. Otherwise, every share trade would have to be recorded on the company’s books. Instead, there is only one entry on the books of the company for all shares held by Charles Schwab for its clients."
"The consequence is that companies with thousands of shareholders will often have fewer record holders."
And even if the SEC deems that Apple has more than 2000 owners of record it would not matter much. The SEC cannot stop the transaction from happenning. All the SEC could do is REQUIRE Apple to file financials each quarter to the SEC for public record. The 2000 owner rule is to protect investors from companies that hide their books. If Apple files publicly they would have satisfied that requirement. I have no problem with Apple continuing to report financials publicly each quarter. What I want to stop is the options trading, short trading, high speed computer trading, and day traders and manipulate publicly held companies.
The 2000 rule change was under the JOBS Act, and originally meant for small, private companies. But as soon as you have more than 499 accredited investors (see link above) -- not, as you fantasize, shareholders of record -- you have to report everything to the SEC as though you were public. Every quarter. Once you start to report, you end up with the same cr4p associated with public scrutiny as before. Also, your stock could start to trade in the so-called "pink sheets." And you don't control who's accredited and who's not.
This is leaving aside the fact that you'd have to finance -- with something like 75% debt -- an enterprise value of $500B + a premium (otherwise your existing shareholders will not sell, or they will block it via lawsuits). Consider that the largest going private transaction ever was in the low $30Bs.
Stop. Stop. Stop.
(One thing that Apple could -- perhaps should -- consider is to stop giving guidance, a la Google, BH, McDonalds, Coca Cola, GE, etc).
Why don't you guys just enjoy buying more shares while the price is marked down. Your effectively buying BigMacs for pennys here.
I'm perfectly happy being a long term apple owner (5 years+). It's just about mindset. Stock prices won't be marked down forever, value and price will overlap at some point.
One other solution available to Apple shareholders is to buy lots of stock at bargain prices and wait for the market it misprice Apple in the other direction. Just buy and hold for the next decade. If Apple grows earnings at half the pace it set for the last 10 years you would be quite rich and receiving $25 - $35 in dividends from any share purchased today. Who care what the market does over the short term other than to be able to price properly while the market is wrong. That is how you get rich investing. The market consistenly under and over estimates stock prices. Your job is to figure out what is happening with the stock you are considering purchasing.
If one were to run a trend line through the Apple data, one would see a slightly positive slope. However, a statistical review of the trend line would indicate that the line is not statistically different from a flat line with a slope of zero. One month does not a trend make. More data is necessary before anyone awards any company top prize. But it appears that Apple's iOS is taking a back seat to Android with only 81% share of the market in China for the month of September (based on the plot provided in the article).
The 2000 rule change was under the JOBS Act, and originally meant for small, private companies. But as soon as you have more than 499 accredited investors (see link above) -- not, as you fantasize, shareholders of record -- you have to report everything to the SEC as though you were public. Every quarter. Once you start to report, you end up with the same cr4p associated with public scrutiny as before. Also, your stock could start to trade in the so-called "pink sheets." And you don't control who's accredited and who's not.
This is leaving aside the fact that you'd have to finance -- with something like 75% debt -- an enterprise value of $500B + a premium (otherwise your existing shareholders will not sell, or they will block it via lawsuits). Consider that the largest going private transaction ever was in the low $30Bs.
Stop. Stop. Stop.
(One thing that Apple could -- perhaps should -- consider is to stop giving guidance, a la Google, BH, McDonalds, Coca Cola, GE, etc).
Agreed. Stop with the guidance. In addition, end the buybacks and consider ending the dividend. Put the money to better use in a million different ways (acquisitions, R&D, Apple Store upgrades, Maps buildout acceleration, experiments with new product lines, etc.)
I don't know about others here, but sog35 has derailed just about all threads on this board for some time now, with this topic where the same sh*t is repeated endlessly. It is now nothing but trolling. It is unfortunate that an Apple "fan"(?) is a troll, but of course that can happen.
My recommendation is to report him to the Mods and see if they might be able to talk sense to him, or block him (maybe both).
My apologies to those shareholders looking for an exit at $150 by the end of this year, but AAPL not reaching that might be the best thing for anyone that wants to discuss something other than an implausible scheme for Apple to go private, or endless bitching about the unfairness of the stock market.
I don't know about others here, but sog35 has derailed just about all threads on this board for some time now, with this topic where the same sh*t is repeated endlessly. It is now nothing but trolling. It is unfortunate that an Apple "fan"(?) is a troll, but of course that can happen.
My recommendation is to report him to the Mods and see if they might be able to talk sense to him, or block him (maybe both).
My apologies to those shareholders looking for an exit at $150 by the end of this year, but AAPL not reaching that might be the best thing for anyone that wants to discuss something other than an implausible scheme for Apple to go private, or endless bitching about the unfairness of the stock market.
Yep. I have had his erratic posts blocked for a while, but unfortunately people keep responding to him. If he's not an utter coward and unrepentant liar, at least we have his "self-ban" coming soon enough.
This will be the ultimate sign that Apple's priority really is products and services rather than stock price and profits. Personally I think this needs to happen before they have a major product flop; which will certainly come.
If you're puzzled about the stock price movements, you should learn a bit about what they mean. Apple's valuation is very high: the current price means investors expect continued growth. It's an iPhone stock basically, and if the iPhone stumbles, the price will fall hard. The share price is not really a measure of the where the firm is or even of its velocity, it's more a measure of the acceleration. If Apple's profit was to stabilise at the current levels (high velocity, but no acceleration), the share price would fall, even though the profit is very good. Maintaining the share price or even growing it from where it is requires constant growth. Investors obviously think this is going to happen but it gets harder and harder. By the way, Wall St doesn't "understand" a stock. The price simply reflects the market sentiment, the price at which there are sellers who think the stock is done with growth meet those who think there is still growth potential.
As far as the company is concerned, does it matter? The traded shares are owned by investors, not by the company. A good stock price may be relevant if the firm wants to raise money by issuing new shares, because it can get more cash for less dilution of existing shareholders, but Apple has lots of cash. . If share prices fall, investors may decide to vote in new management.
Apple is dominating yet the stock price says Microsoft is eating its lunch.
Its time for Apple shareholders to demand the company go private to stop the Wall Street manipulation. How the HELL does the stock price show the last FIVE YEARS that Microsoft is out performing Apple?
The insane part is that Microsoft is priced at 35x earnings (vs 13x for Apple). While I agree that Apple's spectacular growth rates are coming to an end (there is only so much higher than iPhone can go, and no company has yet found the "next" iPhone), I'm not sure I'm so enthusiastic about Microsoft's chances.
Anyway, going private would mean that a small group of investors would have to buy out all the rest. Once you have more than a few hundred shareholders, you are required to file with the SEC, even if your shares don't trade on an exchange.
Comments
Such a disgusting company.
Its been recently changed to 2,000.
But that does not matter. It can be easily be defeated and has ALREADY been defeated many times by having a MUTUAL fund be the shareholder of RECORD. There are many private companies that actually have over 2,000 owners because they sold shares to a Mutual fund who in turn sell the shares to tens of thousands of investors. The Mutual fund is counted as ONE owner of record.
This is true with most public stocks. For example Scottrade may have tens of thousand of clients who own Apple shares. But none of those clients are owners of RECORD. The only owner of RECORD is Scottrade.
Read this article that explains how the 2000/500 owner of record can be easily defeated:
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/01/03/facebook-and-the-500-person-threshold/
"But in the case of most public companies, shares for most investors are not usually held of record but beneficially. In such instances, the shares are held of record by a third party, usually a broker, on behalf of the shareholder. For example, if you buy shares throughCharles Schwab, that discount brokerage firm will serve as the record owner and you will be the beneficial owner. The shares are held this way for administration ease. Otherwise, every share trade would have to be recorded on the company’s books. Instead, there is only one entry on the books of the company for all shares held by Charles Schwab for its clients."
"The consequence is that companies with thousands of shareholders will often have fewer record holders."
And even if the SEC deems that Apple has more than 2000 owners of record it would not matter much. The SEC cannot stop the transaction from happenning. All the SEC could do is REQUIRE Apple to file financials each quarter to the SEC for public record. The 2000 owner rule is to protect investors from companies that hide their books. If Apple files publicly they would have satisfied that requirement. I have no problem with Apple continuing to report financials publicly each quarter. What I want to stop is the options trading, short trading, high speed computer trading, and day traders and manipulate publicly held companies.
Groan... look, we've been through this before, and it's a waste of time. But just so that your endlessly made-up stuff does not confuse people: read http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/retrieveECFR?gp=&SID=8edfd12967d69c024485029d968ee737&r=SECTION&n=17y3.0.1.1.12.0.46.176
The 2000 rule change was under the JOBS Act, and originally meant for small, private companies. But as soon as you have more than 499 accredited investors (see link above) -- not, as you fantasize, shareholders of record -- you have to report everything to the SEC as though you were public. Every quarter. Once you start to report, you end up with the same cr4p associated with public scrutiny as before. Also, your stock could start to trade in the so-called "pink sheets." And you don't control who's accredited and who's not.
This is leaving aside the fact that you'd have to finance -- with something like 75% debt -- an enterprise value of $500B + a premium (otherwise your existing shareholders will not sell, or they will block it via lawsuits). Consider that the largest going private transaction ever was in the low $30Bs.
Stop. Stop. Stop.
(One thing that Apple could -- perhaps should -- consider is to stop giving guidance, a la Google, BH, McDonalds, Coca Cola, GE, etc).
Why don't you guys just enjoy buying more shares while the price is marked down. Your effectively buying BigMacs for pennys here.
I'm perfectly happy being a long term apple owner (5 years+). It's just about mindset. Stock prices won't be marked down forever, value and price will overlap at some point.
One other solution available to Apple shareholders is to buy lots of stock at bargain prices and wait for the market it misprice Apple in the other direction. Just buy and hold for the next decade. If Apple grows earnings at half the pace it set for the last 10 years you would be quite rich and receiving $25 - $35 in dividends from any share purchased today. Who care what the market does over the short term other than to be able to price properly while the market is wrong. That is how you get rich investing. The market consistenly under and over estimates stock prices. Your job is to figure out what is happening with the stock you are considering purchasing.
Agreed. Stop with the guidance. In addition, end the buybacks and consider ending the dividend. Put the money to better use in a million different ways (acquisitions, R&D, Apple Store upgrades, Maps buildout acceleration, experiments with new product lines, etc.)
I don't know about others here, but sog35 has derailed just about all threads on this board for some time now, with this topic where the same sh*t is repeated endlessly. It is now nothing but trolling. It is unfortunate that an Apple "fan"(?) is a troll, but of course that can happen.
My recommendation is to report him to the Mods and see if they might be able to talk sense to him, or block him (maybe both).
My apologies to those shareholders looking for an exit at $150 by the end of this year, but AAPL not reaching that might be the best thing for anyone that wants to discuss something other than an implausible scheme for Apple to go private, or endless bitching about the unfairness of the stock market.
Yep. I have had his erratic posts blocked for a while, but unfortunately people keep responding to him. If he's not an utter coward and unrepentant liar, at least we have his "self-ban" coming soon enough.
The share price is not really a measure of the where the firm is or even of its velocity, it's more a measure of the acceleration. If Apple's profit was to stabilise at the current levels (high velocity, but no acceleration), the share price would fall, even though the profit is very good. Maintaining the share price or even growing it from where it is requires constant growth. Investors obviously think this is going to happen but it gets harder and harder. By the way, Wall St doesn't "understand" a stock. The price simply reflects the market sentiment, the price at which there are sellers who think the stock is done with growth meet those who think there is still growth potential.
As far as the company is concerned, does it matter? The traded shares are owned by investors, not by the company. A good stock price may be relevant if the firm wants to raise money by issuing new shares, because it can get more cash for less dilution of existing shareholders, but Apple has lots of cash. . If share prices fall, investors may decide to vote in new management.
Apple is dominating yet the stock price says Microsoft is eating its lunch.
Its time for Apple shareholders to demand the company go private to stop the Wall Street manipulation. How the HELL does the stock price show the last FIVE YEARS that Microsoft is out performing Apple?
The insane part is that Microsoft is priced at 35x earnings (vs 13x for Apple). While I agree that Apple's spectacular growth rates are coming to an end (there is only so much higher than iPhone can go, and no company has yet found the "next" iPhone), I'm not sure I'm so enthusiastic about Microsoft's chances.
Anyway, going private would mean that a small group of investors would have to buy out all the rest. Once you have more than a few hundred shareholders, you are required to file with the SEC, even if your shares don't trade on an exchange.