palomine

My coffee came out through my nose when I saw this headline. Google has no ability to pick projects. They are the mythical monkey that will have to type for a trillion years to accidentally write a sonnet. 

Apple has an actual process for these ideas. Most of them don't get past the casual conversations at lunch because of obvious reasons.

hey Google, how's that glucose meter contact lense for diabetics coming along? Oh, that's right, diabetics do have sensitive eyes and have trouble with contacts...

My god look at this situation. I did not consider that the Justice Dept CAN write an amicus brief to the Supreme Court! 
 I hope this crap is over when we get a new president and that this isn't the work of career Justice members.

If we have any legal eagles here, can you tell me how common it is for Justice to make a filing like this? It seems a little untoward.

maybe Apple needs to work on its PR some more. Google went to meetings at the Whitehouse >400 times, and Apple is not playing that game. 

What at should they do? I wouldn't blame them if they relocated lock stock and barrel to Ireland or something. The US seems to resent the crap out of them. Or, maybe Apple needs to bribe people, because, all the other companies do. It's more corrupt here than I thought.

meanwhile, Disney is having a problem in China. It seems there are fake theme parks that copy Disney and they have the nerve to use the original Disney characters like Snow White and Mickey Mouse. I wonder if that wasn't in China, but here in the US instead if our Justice Dept would insist Disney has no rights to the characters? That IS what I wonder, after Justice says Apple would be 'stifling innovation' by defending their patents. 

The USA has become so corrupted by money influences I hardly recognize it any more. 

Wall Street press writes about Apple in the screwy way that it does because it is taking advantage of the hype surrounding the stock. It's an innovative company so of course there will be some wild speculation as to what they are up to next. 

What is galling to me as an investor is the craven use of AAPL as a profit stopgap for all the rest of the market.  These firms use the stock as a reliable income generator by having the analysts in their pocket seed some stories positive or negative to influence the price direction. It is pretty easy I would guess, and a huge amount of that goes on. Why wouldn't they? Apple is a solid as hell company with a great following. I don't guess they think anything they write could actually hurt the company, only the stock price.

I remember back in 2009 maybe earlier, Cramer was on his show and scarcely ever mentioned the stock, except to say this  "I think there is going to be a heavy lid on that price going forward". Wow. The heavy lid indeed. There are now so many games being played with the stock that I despair it will ever be priced like the success that it is. 

Another thing while I'm ranting. The P/E is at ~11 or so at $99 a share. Wasn't it about the same a couple years ago? Did the company not grow at all?  Yet Apple made nearly 30% more profit each year. I know there are different ways pricing is figured and I know it takes a lot to move the needle on this much profit, but really! 30% more profit is 30% more profit whatever the starting number was.  When the stock hit $134 the p/e was ~18. If it went up to that again they would probably say it was at 25 or something.  Yeah I know, do the math. Something ain't right. 

Wall Street is USING AAPL as their main squeeze while they fart around, basically. In 2015 after back to back blowout numbers the analysts had something else planned, so they spun all that bs we saw. Then they arbitrarily decided the iPhone 7 was going to be 'the one' that sets the stock up for a rise. Probably, especially since they say so. Except, that now there are so many different gameplans and so many players, it's just a mess and now some say it will be iPhone 8. Which leads to a lousy stock price for what seems like forever. Anyone who did not buy early like me has sure been slapped around. 

What at a strong company Apple is anyway, to survive all this bad news. Is it possible for analysts to ruin its reputation?

The stock market reminds me of a zombie show. You know, where there is new zombie gore in every episode. You might see a zombie impaled on a flagpole, then you see one ripped in two by a boat, or how about a combo knife in the gut along with some...fire? What can the stock analysts dream up next? How about a contest between Amazon and Google over who gets the Trillion dollar market cap first? Let's run GOOG up over AAPL market cap for a day! How about AAPL on an 8 day losing streak the worst in 20 years? And wow! Microsoft has reached an all time sales total of a trillion dollars over its history. Maybe they can dunk AAPL back into the $50s with a trashy story about iTunes getting the ax. Know what I mean? Analysts don't seem too worried about trashing Apples reputation though. If the stock falls they can throw out an opposite rumor. The stock suits their purposes for shoring up errant bottom lines and it can be cycled repeatedly.

I think this thread highlights an issue we haven't thought about much.  The question really is How to do AI without data?