Apple shares hit new all-time intraday and closing highs

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2. Looks like all the Nattering Nabobs of Negativity posting here on MDN have had no effect on people that vote with their MONEY.

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   1. Maybe they will run Pocahontas.

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   2. Gregg, you know as well as anyone that the stock price is only marginally related to a company’s products or product quality or even profitability — and sometimes not at all. Just look at Tesla versus Ford and the rest of the automotive companies.

      Stock price is nearly 100% based upon whether investors think the stock price will go up or down. If investors think the price will continue to rise, then more people try to buy it and the price does indeed go up. If a large fraction of investors think it will go down, then they do puts or sell it and the price does indeed go down. To a large extent stock prices are a self fulfilling prophesy.

      Apple could start shipping a truly horrific product, but if on the same day Namibia and Zimbabwe both say they are going to standardize their governments on Apple products, then the stock price is likely to go up. (Sales on the overall scale of things would see a *tiny* up tick, but the announcement would likely make many investors bullish on Apple stock [AAPL].)

      You likely don’t remember a single day’s events back in the period when Apple was starting to crawl out of the dark days. Apple announced that it was re-stating its expected quarterly profit. It stated that it expected to make only 80% or so of the previously stated profit for the current quarter (but still a huge profit compared to the real dark days). Apple’s stock price fell like a rock. At one point in that day the stock price had fallen by about 50%!

      Was there anything that was fundamentally wrong with Apple compared to the day before? No. Was Apple in any kind of danger of going back to losing quarters? Absolutely not. Did Apple get into any regulatory problem in which it couldn’t ship products? Nope. Did Apple have supplier problems where they wouldn’t be able to get parts for Apple’s products? Not at all.

      Apple was just issuing an update and was being financially responsible and conservative in statements to the SEC and stockholders. (If I remember correctly, Apple finally posted about 95% of the originally stated projected profit.) But, people thought the stock price would fall and they sold. Thus the stock price fell. A Lot. It was all based upon stockholder perception and had nothing to do with Apple or its products.

      The same is true today. Many of us complain about Apple’s products and the apparent lack of quality control. Many of us complain about there appearing to be virtually no leadership at Apple with regard to products (other than marketing people demanding more colors and more glitz — oh, and more “thinness”).

      Apple is chasing profits at the expense of everything else. Apple is chasing higher stock prices at the expense of everything else. It really is 1989-1992 all over again. Those of us who have been Apple loyalists for the past 40 years are concerned that another dark days period may be lurking around the corner. The concern is that if another set of dark days come upon us there is not a Steve Jobs to drag Apple back into the light.

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      1. I like what you wrote, but I wonder about the veracity of “Apple is chasing profits at the expense of everything else?”

         I think Cook is doing somethings w/o profit in mind and these thing are hugely distracting…to him and others he leads. The prime example are his political/save the world forays. His mind is surely distracted and those stock holders, customers/ possible customers on the opposite side of his concerns/prefs are dismissed and possibly disgruntled. He has publicly stated that he cares not if it causes AAPL disruption. Astounding!

         Steve a knew better way in running a publicly owned co…this “way” is contrary to profits at all costs.

         Gregg; stock price snapshots are a poor way to determine a company’s health. Better yet; Apple is up approx 14% this yr and Amazon is up about 50%. One can make reasonable/ration points for negativity based on facts/truth about AAPL…say nothing about stock price.

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         1. I gave you 5 Stars and agree with everything you said, except for the last paragraph.

            What you described as perception I call sentiment. Positive sentiment results in AAPL going up, while the reverse is true. The problem with perception/sentiment is so many can be swayed by the most outrageous, unsubstantiated, illogical rumors. Late March early April last is a great example. It’s a shame really that so many trade on what they read or hear, without any examination of a Company’s fundamentals or guidance.

            As to your last paragraph I say we have no idea what Apple is working on, or what is preventing Apple from introducing it/them, so we can’t honestly say Apple is directionless.

            I do remember Apple’s ‘warning’. It related to the Cube and how badly it was received. Continuous media coverage of “cracks” appearing in the corners ruined the public’s perception of the product. As someone that did a lot of plastic injection molding I recognized the “cracks” as as nit line where molten plastic meets molten plastic coming from the other direction. It’s a natural part of injection molding, but the public wasn’t hearing any of it.

            I’ve been a user of Apple products since 1987, and an investor since Jobs returned. I follow Apple very closely, going so far as to READ its 10Qs and track several operational/financial metrics on spreadsheets.

            Thank you for you comments, it was a pleasure reading something that didn’t emanate from a troll.

         2. “Better yet; Apple is up approx 14% this yr and Amazon is up about 50%.”

            Amazon is a very poor comparison, the respective business models are as different as oil and water. The important comparison metrics (IMO) is profitability, revenue growth, cash flow and net profits. It’s not even close between the two as to has the better metrics. Amazon’s valuation is based on the “promise” of profitability sometime in the future, a future that has yet to emerge after many years of waiting.

            Oh, and your quote above: AAPL has been going up, on average, about 25% per annum since FY2011 on solid revenue, cash flow, net profits, etc. who else generated $250+ Billion cash awhile reducing share count by nearly 30%. Certainly it wasn’t MSFT, AMZN, NTFX, GOOG, Facebook or any of the other WS darlings.

   3. Don’t worry the tech blood bath on Thursday will wipe out all the celebrating today.

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3. Oh not much more to go on that trillion dollars, and the race is on. Way to go Apple!

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4. At the end of the 90s could anyone have predicted that Apple would one day be worth 14 times as much as Sony?

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   1. many wondered if Apple would survive…including me.

      It’s commonly reported that when Steve came back the company was about 3 weeks away from not making payroll.

      Steve loved Sony, so I think he’d be astonished that AAPL would become worth 14x more.

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5. What’s up with MSFT? It’s up about $25B in marketcap today beating out AAPL’s $9B and AMZN’s $17B.

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   1. The gift of Ballmer is long gone. MS should be a model for Cook to observe. There are focusing long/hard on the essentials. When was the last time MS’s CEO was blathering about save-the-world-stuff? No–heats very little about the stuff they are really working hard at…the stuff that is tech’s and MS’s future. Windows is being transitioned to Linux and they will be a/the dominate cloud player.

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6. Yet after hours the whole tech sector took hit ( and took all daily gains back ) because of facebook’s issues..
   Ridiculous !

   Herd stampede.. ..

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