focher

harmonix23 said:

Hopefully, they add finder to ios, it is the thing it needs most. And the real reason you still can't do pro things on ios. There are many great apps but modifying a file in one app then trying to do something else to it in another app is painful to do. Even a simple documents folder that all apps can see would be nice.

Like iCloud Drive? Or Dropbox? Or Box? Or...

How about support for my own library? Geez. 

What a waste. Everyone - apparently - knows that Apple can't innovate anymore. They have yet to explain any new things that they're working on, so it totally makes sense that they must be working on nothing. And I'm sure she was only hired to add more female executives to Apple. I mean, there's nothing at all in her background that she's super smart and accomplished.

....

Just feeling sarcastic today.

ac1234 said:

focher said:

There's nothing Tim Cook or anyone else is going to say that is going to convince short term traders of AAPL about anything. They're going to continue to be upset that Apple's fundamentals - revenue, profit, and growth cycles - are not sufficient to overcome the strange valuations of companies like Amazon and Google. Nothing is going to change that except if the market raises the price of AAPL.

However, it's not Apple that has changed. It has never talked about unannounced products. It has never released a new product category that didn't get slammed in the media as non-innovative. This whole assertion that Apple has lost its ability to innovate is a bit suspect, but whatever.

The best advice was Cramer's last line. Own it, don't trade it. I guess I'm lucky because I care about AAPL's value in the next 15-20 years, not the next 15-20 days.

Oh please - the vast majority of experienced investors posting about the stock price are NOT looking at a 15 - 20 day time period.  That is a superficial and condescending line on your part.

How about a look at the 5 years that Cook has been CEO?  What is happening to Apple now that Cook has run out of Steve's ideas?  When he surrounds himself with dead weight execs like Eddy and Angela he will sink - and sinking he is.

If "sinking" is generating $10B per quarter in profits, then I'm perfectly happy to be on that ship. I'm not exactly sure what the profile of an "investor" is, considering that multitude of people and institutions that invest. To suggest there's a right way to invest is ludicrous on its face, considering there are always up and down cycles for even the "best".

As for your critique of Apple execs, you have a single challenge. Names. Give people NAMES to replace them. And not that crap of "Elon Musk should become the CEO of Apple." Who exactly should run its global subscription business? Eddy Cue has negotiated the biggest global licensing businesses for 10+ years running. Who's got a better track record? Angela Arhendts for retail? Tell me who has a better experience and history running a boutique retail business? Happy to listen, considering you've thrown those two examples out there. But you're just another anonymous armchair quarterback who likes to throw feces around without any substance. I'll take the team generating real revenue and real profits, thanks.

mvigod said:

The facts are that Apple revenue and profit is in decline YOY.  Bulls and bears both acknowledge this as fact.  Next fact is apple guidance for next quarter is also a decline YOY.  
When a company is in decline investors and traders believe that growth is over for Apple.  Now everyone wonders how far will the decline be. Where will it stabilize?  Will it be at revenue 10% lower?  Will it be 50% lower when it stops?  When it stops will it merely flatline and find a base with no growth at  this lower level?  Nobody knows the answer yet, not even Apple.

This brings uncertainty into the equation.  The facts right now in front of everyone are that apple is no longer a growth company.  It is a shrinking company with no idea where the decline ends. 

Cramer has advised, "don't trade apple, own it!".  If you did that for the last year or more you got crushed by the index and literally held the worst dow 30 stock you could buy.  Any of the other 29 Dow stocks did better.  Thanks Cramer.

Apple isn't going bankrupt anytime soon. We all know that.  We do know Apple at 512B market cap IS the iPhone.  If iPhone volume shrinks, margins or asp's shrink things will get worse for the revenue, profits and stock.  

I don't understand why anybody wants to be short apple or be long the stock.  This easily falls into the too hard bucket.  Plenty of other easier stocks and sectors out there right now to make money in.  Apple, like it or not, is plagued with uncertainty and a seeming hate from Wall Street traders and investors.

A very reasonable and sensible view. Here's why I'm long on AAPL (and Apple). First, innovation cannot be at all measured from Apple except in hindsight. They don't share roadmaps, pre-announce products, or even usually hint what they're working on. So one has to go based on history. The history of Apple over the last 20 years is that they enter markets periodically with innovative products (if not necessarily innovative technology) and a few times have completely disrupted incumbent players. We know that this happened both with Steve Jobs' leadership and also with the leadership of others within the company. Second, I don't believe Apple is in decline because YOY measurements are not appropriate here. If you look at the 2-3 year cycle of iPhone growth, 2015 was actually a huge outlier when current results are considered. This last quarter would have been a record quarter too if last year's Q1 wasn't such a huge increase versus its prior year. I don't believe this last quarter was the outlier, I see that last year was the outlier (in a good way) because it made this last quarter look "bad" because it didn't increase YOY.

Only time will tell if that view is correct. Will Apple's innovation end without Steve Jobs? Or did Steve Jobs perform his most important task of embedding the creation of great products within the culture of Apple? Who knows, but as Apple continues to add $10B+ each QUARTER to its cash reserves a sell off of AAPL for anyone holding it seems entirely premature. At $93 per share, it seems ridiculous to sell it versus buy it considering just the fact of how much profit Apple earns each quarter. When THAT trails off, maybe AAPL should see lower share price. Until then, that's just denying math.