gregg thurman

knowitall said:

"The multiple's not gigantic, it's not like a tech-speculative company that's still losing money or anything." 

Does anyone know what this means?(espessially the ‘multiples’ part)

“Multiple”is a term sometimes used in lieu of “PE”.  “PE” refers to the calculation Price (price of the stock) divided by Earnings Per Share (fully diluted). The formula and term were first devised to compare the relative values of stocks for firms with varying numbers of shares outstanding. Over the years the intent of the calculation has been corrupted and is now used as a standard to determine the value of a share, and not as a comparative between shares. The corruption has become so bad that analysts, media and investors will describe a “PE” as good, high, bad or low.

in reality “PE” measures the level of sentiment towards the equity by the marketplace. In an attempt to keep that intent at the fore I do not use “PE” in my discussions of earnings per share. I refer to it as Investor Sentiment Multiplier (ISM). 
ISM’s are neither good, bad, high or low, they are what they are and nothing more. 

I do do believe that the value given to AAPL is low, especially when you compare growth rates, gross margins, net income and of course Earnings per Share. If the market valued Apple/AAPL the same way it does no growth commodity firms with stable net income it ISM would be about 25.  However, I think sentiment that high for a company the size of Apple, no matter its extraordinary performance, scares the market. 

Not all “smartphones” are being used as “smartphones”. Myself and others have said that cheap Android handsets are being used as glorified “smartphones”. That means their useful lifecycle is elongated compared to those being used as true “smartphones” (much greater data usage) do. 

If if the above is true (I think it is) then the decline in worldwide “smartphone” unit sales can be attributed primarily to those units used as glorified feature phones - aka cheap Androids. 

That iPhone is gaining market share would seem to support this thesis. 

It doesn’t matter how you become aware as long as you do. Even if the Apple Watch alert comes moments after you become aware something is wrong, it’s great to be getting a SECOND opinion, or an admonishment to seek immediate medical attention. How many have died ignoring early heart attact symptoms. 

I wouldnt minimize the value of the Heart app with comments like, “Well he/she/they would/should have figured it out themselves”, that’s just stupid. 

These reports, life saving or not, are going to drive many more sales to an aging, health conscious population. Good for them, and shame on the naysayers. 

rare comment said:

Folio said:

Yes, China booming middle class. Purchases of bmw Audi etc help make VW largest carmaker. I’m no expert. Curious if iOS differentiates a device as much in China as in US. Never viewed app offerings in China. Anyone know if Apple still adding stores? Hitting many second tier cities?

this is Apple's biggest risk - in China, a lot of app functionality is consumed as a sub-app within a larger app (in particular, tencent's WeChat app). This means that payments, car sharing, shopping, browsing, chat, etc., are sub-apps within WeChat. And this also means that iOS is less sticky - someone entirely contained in the WeChat ecosystem can change phones with very small switching costs as their whole app world just moves with them. It doesn't completely undercut iOS and, obviously, hardware differences matter. But it is a real risk. As an aside, I think this is why Facebook tried so hard to make Facebook a platform so that its app would be the world inside which users live.

I agree WeChat is iPhone's biggest sales limiter.  However, WeChat is OS agnostic, and the Chinese are incredibly status conscious.  The iPhone is an aspirational status symbol in China.  That's why I'm interested in iPhone market share among the top 15% of the addressable market.  THIS IS APPLE'S TARGET MARKET.

clarker99 said:

AAPL down ~$15 over last 5 or 6 sessions with all these ‘analysts’ guessing on weak sales of the X. Apparently Apple only sells 1 model in the analyst world.

Guessing yr over yr revenue and profit will be up over last year. The q3 guidance will come in below the street expectations. 

Your first statement regarding 'analysts' guessing is spot on.  I have been tracking analyst (41) unit sales, revenue and EPS estimates for more than 10 years.  The spread between high and low estimates is big enough to drive a very large truck through (without scraping paint).  The percentage of analysts that consistently comes close is 10%.

Apple guided revenue (bottom of range) at $60 Billion.  Since FQ3/2012 (when Oppenheimer replaced Anderson as CFO), Apple has never failed to achieve its bottom of revenue range.  That's never in 23 quarters (almost 6 years).  Apple's average revenue beat (bottom of the range) during the aforementioned period is 5.76%.  Running Apple's guidance numbers results in YoY Net Income growth of 19%.

I don't know about this august group, but I'm inclined to believe the people most likely to KNOW, then a bunch that is guessing.