“It is widely expected that Apple will introduce the iPhone 5 on September 12, 2012,” Nigam Arora writes for Forbes. “Traditionally Apple stock runs higher into a major product launch. However, this time iPhone 5 frenzy has turned into a full-fledged mania. Adding fuel to the fire is speculation that the mini iPad will also be announced on the same day.”
“Yesterday Apple stock broke out to an all time high. Based on the number of shares outstanding, this price calculates a market cap of $623.5 billion. Apple just beat the market cap record set by Microsoft on December 30, 1999 of $618.9 billion,” Arora writes. “It was not long ago that analysts were concerned about the law of large numbers. Now everyone has become oblivious to the concern. Apple mania is in full swing. Astute investors will enjoy the party but keep an eye on the exit.”
Read more in the full article here.
If we take inflation into account, Apple will have to reach a market cap of somewhere between $805 and $999 billion to match the value of Microsoft in 1999. And I have no doubt they eventually will. But the current valueis still quite an achievement, none the less.
Not a real comparison as that Microsuck number involves a PE ratio of 72 when the ratios were at their highest point in history. It’s just an irrelevant bubble number. Apple is a far more valuable company now that MS was then. Gates knew just when to bail. I doubt he’d be doing much better than his sweaty igor at this point.
This is normal behavior for the stock.
1. Stock remains at same level for a period of time.
2. Stock shoots up to set new highs.
3. Go back to 1.
The dividend and impending ip5 ae catalysts for the brokers to get their clients to buy in. The brokers already have their positions set. Once the stock goes up higher enough the brokers will sell their position to cash in.
The question is what is the new high and what will the new baseline be?
It looks like today we have reached the brokers sell positions. The stock opened at $374 and is now at $358. I expect this profit taking to be a short run. When Apple releases the official press release for the iPhone event (rumored Sept 12) then we will see another rally.
I can’t wait to pre-order my iPad mini.
Analyst downgrade this morning knocked AAPL from several dollars up to several dollars down. Having studied all aspects of company valuations for decades, I can say analyst upgrades and downgrades are less valid in projecting future performance (both short term and long) than flipping a coin.
This is how it works. One of the analysts / brokers start seeding doubts to push the stock down.
We had a steady increase for a number of weeks now. During that period there have been few negative comments to stem the increase. Now that a new high has been reached the negative comments start to appear until they increase enough to drive down the stock.
Happens every single time.
appl price with a PE of about 14 (much lower ex cash) isn’t ‘mania’ from investors.
amazon with a P.E of 290 is ‘mania’.
biggest market cap or whatever, aapl is extremely undervalued stock. If apple is valued like other high income stocks the price should be way higher now.
When iPod/iPhone/iPad could work on Apple Match will see, so far you still need a computer