Dan_Dilger

knowitall said:

I think, not being able to locally produce goods, was a self fullfilling prophecy of asshole (it) managers back then driven by squeezing the last penny out of almost loss making products.

randominternetperson said:

This all makes sense if this were an Apple issue and not a global economy issue.  Personally, I expect the market to keep dropping until some good news about Covid-19 starts appearing.  It doesn't matter if Apple can make iPhones if there are economy-wide layoffs crushing the demand for iStuff.

gatorguy said:

FWIW six months ago the same author wrote this:
"But why is Apple buying back shares seemingly regardless of their price? It appears clear that Apple expects its share price to grow much higher in the future. So rather than carefully timing its repurchases to only occur when the stock price hits its lowest levels, Apple continues to buy shares back nearly as fast as it can all the time, even as the stock price jumps up and down as it continues to increment higher."

As for jumping on this unexpectedly low stock price I would assume that at the moment Apple would be in one of their "blackout periods" where they are not permitted to buy back stock except under a predefined/prearranged schedule that ignores what the stock price is at a point in time and instead picks a date for the transaction to occur. Of course they are not obligated to complete a pre-scheduled buyback, they can choose to hold on to the cash instead, but they also can't create one at their whim during a blackout period. Have I got that right?

sirozha said:

Apparently, DED holds a large position in AAPL. How does he know that Apple is buying shares for cheap right now?  (because Tim Cook said as much in 2014) The supply chains are completely disrupted or decimated. (decimated literally means reduced by 10%, so if you are right, big whoop, Apple only ever needed to gear up minor production this quarter. It's not peak demand for apple) It’s very possible that to restore the manufacturing capabilities, Apple will need to move manufacturing out of China. (False, but Apple is also operating manufacturing outside China as we reported) Foxconn can’t do it on their own. (Foxconn operates globally and is based Taiwan, not the PRC) Apple will have to pay for a large portion of moving manufacturing out of China (What?). Apple’s sales this year will be low compared to previous years due the problems with supply chains and lower demand. (This year? The Flu kills 40 times as many people as Coronavirus has, every year!) Additionally, it appears that the super cycle based on 5G is not going to happen in 2020 (the super cycle hasn't ever happened and isn't material to Apple's success. Apple's share price is based on predictions of a super cycle) because of the Coronavirus delaying iPhone 12 (there's no evidence of this happening) but also because the deployment of 5G largely stalled all over the world (not accurate but also not relevant to 2020 sales of 5G iPhones, as 5G phones are already selling in many markets). 

In these kind of conditions, it would be completely stupid of Tim Cook to throw cash reserves at stock buy backs (not if it views its stock as undervalued). The whole reason behind Steve Jobs’ building the stash of cash (Jobs didn't purposely build a stash) was to enable Apple to survive a calamity (not really) that would destroy other businesses. Coronavirus has a very good chantce of becoming this calamity (Apple has $99 billion in liquid assets and unlimited capacity for borrowing at near 0%, regardless of $20 billion spent quarterly on buybacks). Apple will need cash to keep paying their employees and not laying them off (false). Apple will need cash to set up new supply chains (false) and assembly facilities outside of China (false), run their data centers (false), pay rent on their stores worldwide (holy cow false), donate to the Trump campaign (it doesn't) to prevent a socialist from winning (Apple doesn't care who the president is to run its business and to make money ) the next Presidential election and splitting up Apple (no threat of this), etc. 

Blowing cash on buybacks to keep AAPL afloat so that DED’s portfolio would look not as bad should be the least of Tim Cook’s concerns now, and  I’m 99% positive that this is not what Apple is doing during this market correction (well you are 100% wrong). 

avon b7 said:

This is all relevant to just one quarter. Is that correct? And Apple's traditional blowout quarter at that. Double digit growth says very little unless we have some absolute figures to go on and the words 'lower pricing' and 'discounting' seem to be very prominent in the source information which includes IDC, a company we have been told is not a valid source of information.