“For Carl Icahn to make the same percentage return on his Apple stake in the next three years as he made on his Netflix holdings in the last three, Apple would have to be worth $9tn in 2018,” Stephen Foley and Matthew Garrahan report for The Financial Times.
“Nonetheless,” Foley and Garrahan report, “Mr Icahn cemented his position as one of Apple’s most enthusiastic public boosters on Wednesday, as he also revealed that he has sold the remainder of his Netflix stock for a $2bn total profit.”
Sold last of our $NFLX today. Believe $AAPL currently represents same opportunity we stated NFLX offered several years ago.
— Carl Icahn (@Carl_C_Icahn) June 24, 2015
Foley and Garrahan report, “Mr Icahn’s hedge funds have $6.8bn tied up in Apple shares, just under 1 per cent of the $745bn company. Apple’s price has already doubled since he took his initial stake in August 2013, and he has been one of the company’s biggest cheerleaders on Twitter and in television interviews. Apple is the sort of company that only comes along twice in a century, he said last month, and it has an ‘absurd’ low valuation.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: AAPL is seeing a bit of a bounce off the news as well.
Netflix is up 99.4%. He caught most of that wave, and now, like many investors would be, he’s dropped out.
Apple pays dividends Netflix does not. I’m sure this played a role in the decision to cash out.
Only a fool would buy AAPL for the dividends. They are a pittance compared to the growth. About 2% compared to 50% per year. Which is the better value?
50% growth? Over what period? The last year? Nope. Each of the last 5 years? Nope. You have no idea what you are talking about. Yup.
OK, 40.92% over the last 365 days. 50% over the next year.
So then … now is the time for Apple to buy Netflix? That’s how I read it.
How did you read that? The price of a company is not less because the stock split.
Price shmice. With $200 Billion in the bank price is irrelevant. They should buy Netflix now because now they won’t have deal with Icahn to do it.
Near the peak after a 99% rise? Probably not, Rev.
“Sometimes Satan comes as a man of peace.” Scumbag.
Iyatollah you so
Say what you want, but every time he beats the drum I make money.
He’ll dump Apple too when it doubles.
Maybe when Apple stops doubling, but who knows when that will be.
“Yabadabadu,”
Dump it? So he’s supposed to hold it forever? Idiot!
Oh what a temper Lieutenant trigger happy…
As a speculator of course he will dump AAPL at some point, but that won’t be at an arbritary multiple like double, it will be when he can see an opportunity to put that money somewhere where he believes that it would do better than in AAPL.
Whenever Icahn starts selling, the regular Joe investor will find out *after* Icahn has significantly reduced his stake. Then the price will fall and the individual investor will bear the burden of either getting out at a lower price or hanging on for the eventual rise.
The big guys can create their own boom/bust cycles in the stock market. The rest of us are just in for the ride.
I’m surprised Icahn sold his Netflix stock even after the past gains. Everyone claims it’s the perfect stock to own and Reed Hastings can do no wrong. I wish I’d had the smarts to buy Netflix after it had dropped however, I thought it was too expensive for an online video store. I sure was wrong. I just don’t get it. It would seem to be so easy to duplicate by a company with deep pockets.
As far as I’m concerned, Amazon Prime Instant Video is nearly as good for a lot less money. Netflix isn’t even as good as Popcorn Time for new movies and recent TV series. I’m already overloaded with more content than I can watch. Yet Wall Street claims Netflix has unlimited growth. I honestly don’t understand it.
Apple seems to be making all the money but it’s Netflix shareholders who are getting rich as the share price and P/E climbs to the moon. A P/E of 176 or so doesn’t seem possible. No way they can make that sort of revenue.
Check out the gain in AAPL and NFLX in the last 12 months. NFLX kicked AAPL’s ass! Carl knows how to invest. Even better, check out the last 5 years!!!!