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Interesting. Apple is doing 'great' but the stock market (1) disagrees so almost by definition it isn't doing good. Investors see clouds in the horizon and don'

Interesting. Apple is doing 'great' but the stock market (1) disagrees so almost by definition it isn't doing good. Investors see clouds in the horizon and don't want to look at the $50 billion they might make in profit this year. Is Apple going to grow by 10 to 20% a year? Google reported huge revenue increases and the stock is on fire but not because of new ventures or customers, they just added even more ads to the pages. That's not sustainable and when that happens it has a lot of falling to do. http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=goog http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=goog . Virtually all their money is still from ads. Edit: 1. I think all this hype on stocks is a pump-and-dump operation, played by the big investment banks. "They" buy lots of shares, start the fire with $1000 price targets from their own analysts and when the price is high enough, they dump it, leaving some retail investor holding the bag. Google went from mid $500s to $800 in a few months

dyno12345 14y ago
I think investors think Apple has done so well it now has nowhere to go but down. Something like 50% of Apple's revenue comes from the iPhone, in a market where you're only as good as your latest product and they only release one product a year.
- OGinparadise 14y ago
  True, even though China and India might save them for a while. But then carrier subsidies might cease here. Maybe that's why they build temples like the OP said, they are on top of the world. The next likely move, however, is down.
wilfra 14y ago
Regarding your pump-and-dump theory, you lack understanding of some fundamental things about stocks. The huge stockholders are mutual funds and huge institutional investors who rarely sell their shares. Retail investors barely move the needle and own a very small % of outstanding shares.
- OGinparadise 14y ago
  I understand it well. If they (and founders) don't sell--and they can't easily without causing a major share drop--then the shares available are limited so the price goes up for those that want them. If what you say was the case, why would investment banks spend all that money for researchers? Sure big financial investors and mutual funds do their own research up to a point? Do you think Citibank would buy based on Henry Blodget's 'research' http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2003-56.htm http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2003-56.htm ?
nandemo 14y ago
I don't think it's true that "the stock market disagrees that Apple is doing great". Apple is valued at over 400 billion dollars by the stock market. Maybe you mean that the price of Apple stock fell in some period t0 to t1, but that certainly doesn't mean the stock market is saying Apple is doing badly. That might simply mean the stock market updated its predictions on how Apple is going to do in the future. Also, every stock has some degree of volatility. Take any stock and you'll find periods that the stock went up or down. In the case of Apple, if you look at the 5-year period finishing the increase has been 270%, way over the Nasdaq average. > I think all this hype on stocks is a pump-and-dump operation, played by the big investment banks. "They" buy lots of shares, start the fire with $1000 price targets from their own analysts and when the price is high enough, they dump it, leaving some retail investor holding the bag. Sorry, but this is naive. It's not feasible to manipulate the market over several months that way. In most cases, the biggest shareholders are the company's founders and management, mutual and pension funds, and hedge funds. They would need to do a lot of (very illegal) conspiring in order to pull out that sort of thing. E.g. they would have to agree not to start selling off until a certain date. Although illegal trading certainly does happen, that's usually via insider information (e.g. the investment banking division obtains secret information from Apple, and leaks it to the prop trading division). In this case, retail investors can get screwed, but so do all the banks and funds who aren't in the know. If you're a retail investor, the way you lose money to brokers and market makers is typically by trading too much and thereby paying too many fees, and paying the spread too many times. Another way you lose money is when the company board & management screws you (e.g. by overpaying management, or by liberally issuing too much stock thereby diluting yours).
- OGinparadise 14y ago
  " That might simply mean the stock market updated its predictions on how Apple is going to do in the future.." Exactly my point, Apple (PE of 10) is not going to do that well in the future, unlike Google with a PE of 24. At least that's how the market sees it right now. When AAPL was heading to $700 and many analysts got in line to call AAPL $1000 /share the market thought differently.

dyno12345 14y ago

I think investors think Apple has done so well it now has nowhere to go but down. Something like 50% of Apple's revenue comes from the iPhone, in a market where you're only as good as your latest product and they only release one product a year.

OGinparadise 14y ago
True, even though China and India might save them for a while. But then carrier subsidies might cease here. Maybe that's why they build temples like the OP said, they are on top of the world. The next likely move, however, is down.

wilfra 14y ago

Regarding your pump-and-dump theory, you lack understanding of some fundamental things about stocks. The huge stockholders are mutual funds and huge institutional investors who rarely sell their shares. Retail investors barely move the needle and own a very small % of outstanding shares.

OGinparadise 14y ago
I understand it well. If they (and founders) don't sell--and they can't easily without causing a major share drop--then the shares available are limited so the price goes up for those that want them. If what you say was the case, why would investment banks spend all that money for researchers? Sure big financial investors and mutual funds do their own research up to a point? Do you think Citibank would buy based on Henry Blodget's 'research' http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2003-56.htm http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2003-56.htm ?

nandemo 14y ago

I don't think it's true that "the stock market disagrees that Apple is doing great". Apple is valued at over 400 billion dollars by the stock market. Maybe you mean that the price of Apple stock fell in some period t0 to t1, but that certainly doesn't mean the stock market is saying Apple is doing badly. That might simply mean the stock market updated its predictions on how Apple is going to do in the future. Also, every stock has some degree of volatility. Take any stock and you'll find periods that the stock went up or down. In the case of Apple, if you look at the 5-year period finishing the increase has been 270%, way over the Nasdaq average. > I think all this hype on stocks is a pump-and-dump operation, played by the big investment banks. "They" buy lots of shares, start the fire with $1000 price targets from their own analysts and when the price is high enough, they dump it, leaving some retail investor holding the bag. Sorry, but this is naive. It's not feasible to manipulate the market over several months that way. In most cases, the biggest shareholders are the company's founders and management, mutual and pension funds, and hedge funds. They would need to do a lot of (very illegal) conspiring in order to pull out that sort of thing. E.g. they would have to agree not to start selling off until a certain date. Although illegal trading certainly does happen, that's usually via insider information (e.g. the investment banking division obtains secret information from Apple, and leaks it to the prop trading division). In this case, retail investors can get screwed, but so do all the banks and funds who aren't in the know. If you're a retail investor, the way you lose money to brokers and market makers is typically by trading too much and thereby paying too many fees, and paying the spread too many times. Another way you lose money is when the company board & management screws you (e.g. by overpaying management, or by liberally issuing too much stock thereby diluting yours).

OGinparadise 14y ago
" That might simply mean the stock market updated its predictions on how Apple is going to do in the future.." Exactly my point, Apple (PE of 10) is not going to do that well in the future, unlike Google with a PE of 24. At least that's how the market sees it right now. When AAPL was heading to $700 and many analysts got in line to call AAPL $1000 /share the market thought differently.