"Apple is the next Microsoft"

[wizwor]

Many people have held GE for 100 years. I haven't held mine that long, but its dividends are sending my kids to college, will supplement my retirement income, and finally be inherited by my kids.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by wizwor

Many people have held GE for 100 years. I haven't held mine that long, but its dividends are sending my kids to college, will supplement my retirement income, and finally be inherited by my kids.

.
At&t too ..till it crashed...Kodak too...like wise.
So your advise really seems to amount to 'go back in time 100 years and buy stock that is still valuable today'. The market is always a gamble, yet there are people who make money in a different way than picking the right company decades in advance. In a different way than you. But you really seem to think you know better than everyone.

[frahse]

Originally Posted by wizwor

I don't think a company or even an officer of a company can transact large sales/purchases in secret. Buy backs are a legitimate use of cash/stock. I paid off my 'readiloan' when GE tanked. That was a small scale buy back.

Your point about the value of a company is valid to a point. IP, patents, licenses, and even personalities (Steve Jobs) are part of the value of a company. There is speculation about future sales and success, too, but that's OK. Really, who buys a company/stock based on the value of its assets?

The thing is, if you look at Apple, a lot of that is gone. They have lost some of the perceived value of IP, patents, and licenses in court battles. Cook is not Jobs. People feel less positive about future sales as their customer base ages and low cost competitors get much better.

I don't know if $400 is the right price, but absent another amazing product, Apple is on the decline. People are talking about TVs and streaming boxes and watches. Those products will lead to a $300 Apple. They are not going to sustain historic margins competing with Roku and Amazon.

I don't think a company or even an officer of a company can transact large sales/purchases in secret.

Yet for 2 weeks, the public didn't know of the Buyback. I think that papers must be filed with the SEC but public notice doesn't have to be given immediately. (There are arguably valid reasons for this.)

For years Steve Jobs resisted buy backs just as he resisted dividends. You can see his stingy side in the movie "Jobs" where he lies to Woz and only gives him $350 for his work on the Atari game whereas he should have gotten half of $5,000. Later he nixes out founder shares for the technicians that helped him and Woz.

Your point later about GE is valid.
I too am long on GE, and like XOM which I mention elsewhere, GE is diversified with a sustainable long term life.

Apple is $517.35 today, as the "faithful" start to lose heart. Apple would have done better to raise the dividend. In a week or two that buyback effect will have vanished.

[wizwor]

Originally Posted by ApK

.
At&t too ..till it crashed...Kodak too...like wise.
So your advise really seems to amount to 'go back in time 100 years and buy stock that is still valuable today'. The market is always a gamble, yet there are people who make money in a different way than picking the right company decades in advance. In a different way than you. But you really seem to think you know better than everyone.

I believe I said buy good companies or sectors and hold. I probably should have continued, "until they are not good." You need to understand companies to pick the good ones. I happen to know a lot about a particular company and like its potential (it's not Apple). You can do the same thing with funds. I have never invested in international funds, for instance, because I do not have time to ensure the stability of the nations or their currencies. Investing is speculative, but 'regular' people have made money in the stock market.

[wizwor]

Originally Posted by frahse

Yet for 2 weeks, the public didn't know of the Buyback. I think that papers must be filed with the SEC but public notice doesn't have to be given immediately. (There are arguably valid reasons for this.)

That's right.

Originally Posted by frahse

For years Steve Jobs resisted buy backs just as he resisted dividends. You can see his stingy side in the movie "Jobs" where he lies to Woz and only gives him $350 for his work on the Atari game whereas he should have gotten half of $5,000. Later he nixes out founder shares for the technicians that helped him and Woz.

Your point later about GE is valid.
I too am long on GE, and like XOM which I mention elsewhere, GE is diversified with a sustainable long term life.

Apple is $517.35 today, as the "faithful" start to lose heart. Apple would have done better to raise the dividend. In a week or two that buyback effect will have vanished.

Buyback means there are less shares, so revenue per share increases. This should increase the value of each remaining share. Dividends decrease the value of the company and dilute the value of each share. Companies that consistently pay dividends AND grow share price are creating a lot of value.

[fjtorres]

When people compare Apple to "Microsoft" they aren't talking about the real Microsoft of today. They are talking about the clueless fictional company of the cool mac vs stodgy PC ads.
The reality of today is different.
While investors fret about Apple's next miraculous product, Microsoft is not so quietly developing multiple lines of revenue for now and the future.
Try this:
http://www.zdnet.com/10-amazingly-st...tag=RSS14dc6a9

Microsoft's cash stash may only be $69B but their business is nicely diversified; they have a dozen billion dollar a year products, most of which are in steady growth mode. This diversification means that, unlike Apple or Google, they are not tied to any single product and a failure of any one won't be much of a threat.

Apple wishes they could become the next Microsoft because if they're not careful they can easily end up as the old Scully Apple, milking one cash cow to death. Quiet sustained competence usually trumps up and down hit-based wonderd.

[pl001]

I agree, Microsoft has also built themselves quite an ecosystem, arguably the most complete of any of the players. Mobile, desktop, software, search, gaming, cloud...despite popular opinion it's all coming together quite nicely. Combined with their absolute dominance in the corporate world and recent success in unified communications they are not going anywhere anytime soon.

In the consumer market, however, I feel they have made a huge mistake in locking down the Windows app store. This along with Apple's similar tactic has allowed Android to become the Windows of the mobile world. I don't know if they will ever surpass Android now, but I expect at some point they will surpass iOS again.

[pl001]

Google also has its share of problems right now. OEMs have such razor-thin margins on Android devices they have little choice but to put their own flavor of OS on them to try to milk some sort of revenue out of consumers. Samsung keeps developing Tizen, in fact their Gear 2 watches will run it instead of Android. Kindles are essentially unrecognizable as Android. Other Android OEMs are having serious financial difficulty. Google itself was unable to make Motorola successful.

Long term, my bet's still on Microsoft.

[hardcastle]

Microsoft has a company culture that isn't compatible with consumer-facing long-term support though. They nuke anything that doesn't dominate immediately and come back in six months with the same broken attempt. Games for Windows, the Zune, Internet Explorer 7-11, for example. They even get a little antsy around the Xbox, suddenly swerving in their approaches every few years despite few necessary reason for doing so. I don't expect the Surface to stick around unless it really starts making waves by the end of the year, and I guarantee Microsoft will be back with another attempt soon after, leaving many consumers high and dry.

Microsoft will be an interesting one to watch. They're careful and wily when it comes to enterprise ecosystems, and they know how to stay entrenched. The new CEO might have a better idea of how to draw the consumer-side into the that same mode of thinking.

[fjtorres]

Google is now on their third pivot, looking for added revenue sources.
First they tried to do ad-supported software and services. Most never got past the betaware state.
Then they tried mobile OSes and software and while Android has broad adoption, their choice of java on Linux created an IP minefield that sapped most of the profitability out of android and has encouraged forks. (MS is reported to make more money off android than google. And now they have their own Android fork.) Small wonder Google is working so heavily on ChromeOS.
Now, Google is turning to robotics. Self driving cars, etc. Not a bad gamble.
They're doing fine but for all their tinkering and tech investment, the bulk of their money is still from selling online ads.

Going from one successful product to a fully diversified portfolio is a rarity. Lotus eventually failed; Word Perfect, Ashton-Tate, Borland, DEC, Apollo, Sun... some lasted years, a few lasted decades, but all eventually faced a market shift and failed. Apple itself came to within inches of collapse and is still vulnerable to unforseen market shifts.

Facebook is another big company looking desperately for a tighter grip on their good fortune.

[WillysJeepMan]

Originally Posted by hardcastle

Microsoft has a company culture that isn't compatible with consumer-facing long-term support though. They nuke anything that doesn't dominate immediately and come back in six months with the same broken attempt. Games for Windows, the Zune, Internet Explorer 7-11, for example. They even get a little antsy around the Xbox, suddenly swerving in their approaches every few years despite few necessary reason for doing so. I don't expect the Surface to stick around unless it really starts making waves by the end of the year, and I guarantee Microsoft will be back with another attempt soon after, leaving many consumers high and dry.

Microsoft will be an interesting one to watch. They're careful and wily when it comes to enterprise ecosystems, and they know how to stay entrenched. The new CEO might have a better idea of how to draw the consumer-side into the that same mode of thinking.

You have artfully and correctly described Microsoft's consumer market endeavors. They have mastered the ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

[PeterShow]

Originally Posted by Jessica Lares

For every person that still owns and uses an iPad 1, there are probably 10 who have bought two or more Android tablets since then.

You're own stats?

[hardcastle]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Google is now on their third pivot, looking for added revenue sources.
First they tried to do ad-supported software and services. Most never got past the betaware state.
Then they tried mobile OSes and software and while Android has broad adoption, their choice of java on Linux created an IP minefield that sapped most of the profitability out of android and has encouraged forks. (MS is reported to make more money off android than google. And now they have their own Android fork.) Small wonder Google is working so heavily on ChromeOS.
Now, Google is turning to robotics. Self driving cars, etc. Not a bad gamble.
They're doing fine but for all their tinkering and tech investment, the bulk of their money is still from selling online ads.

Going from one successful product to a fully diversified portfolio is a rarity. Lotus eventually failed; Word Perfect, Ashton-Tate, Borland, DEC, Apollo, Sun... some lasted years, a few lasted decades, but all eventually faced a market shift and failed. Apple itself came to within inches of collapse and is still vulnerable to unforseen market shifts.

Facebook is another big company looking desperately for a tighter grip on their good fortune.

It really depends on their current goals. If their goal is to aggregate data on their users, then they continue to succeed. Android's domination helps them there - even if vendors spin off their own edition, it's still got enough Google juice left over to feed back to the data aggregation.

Is Google's end-goal the data? Who knows. The question is where that data will go after it's aggregated, and I don't even know if Google knows what to do with it. They're sort of like a little kid getting everything he wanted for Christmas and then ending up asleep on the couch after five minutes of playtime.

Google's interesting because at one point they decided they wanted an ecosystem and they've been slowly moving in that direction, but the fragments from before are very scattered and users aren't all that interested in riding along with their changes. But it doesn't seem like they really want a locked-in app environment as much as Android suggests, so the end goal might be in motion or entirely fluid.

[Rizla]

I see a lot less people using mac laptops in public places now than I did a couple of years ago. It used to be at least 50%, now it's more like 10%. That may just be coincidental. I wonder what sales for mac laptop figures are for the last five years.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by Rizla

I see a lot less people using mac laptops in public places now than I did a couple of years ago. It used to be at least 50%, now it's more like 10%. That may just be coincidental. I wonder what sales for mac laptop figures are for the last five years.

I see far far fewer people using laptops at all in public. For bits and pieces they use phones, and for bigger things tablets.