An in-depth examination of Apple Computer stock

10 Comments

“This week, Reuters Select Top Down Company Focus articles examine Technology companies. Today, we look at a firm in the Computer Hardware industry that is updating its existing products and introducing new ones to much fanfare. Apple Computer, Inc. (AAPL.O) recently came to light on two Reuters Select Growth screens: Relative Momentum and Rising Expectations,” Reuters reports.

“One factor that is necessary in order for a company to appear on both the Relative Momentum and Rising Expectations screens is that of stock-price appreciation. More specifically, the stock must have climbed during the last four and 52 weeks, and outperformed its respective Industry by more than 50% over those periods. We know that AAPL has hit this mark, but exactly how well has the stock done of late? If we just take a quick glance at a chart of AAPL, we see that the issue has been in a steady upswing for the last 12 months, rising from about $20 to its current level just north of $55,” Reuters reports.

Full article, with much more, here.

10 Comments

  6. Ive been watching AAPL stock for many years now.. and, I saw this coming…

    Too bad my wallet isnt in shape to take advantage of this situation…

    Hmmmm, I guess this blows the ALL Mac Users are wealthy .. theory out of the water, huh ?

    Reply

  9. I don’t think it will last and I hope it doesn’t. All that’s happened is partially uninformed positive hype has replaced completely misinformed negative hype.

    Before the iPod, Apple’s value was typically equal to the cash it had in the bank. Consider that in the context that lots of companies don’t actually *have* any money in the bank. Or think of everything that Apple has (ever) created and put a zero next to it. Wall St. wasn’t using Macs and they didn’t get it.

    However, Wall St. bought iPods. And they started to get it. But they didn’t necessarily get Apple. Mostly what they got was the iPod/iTMS. In other words, Apple stocks turned into ‘iPod stocks.’

    Unfortunately however, iPod/iTMS is the one thing that Apple makes which has a questionable future: fierce competition from other companies and other devices, like smart phones that are MP3 players and digital cameras and voice recorders and PDAs and (of course) phones. Having said that, I’m sure ‘iPod stock’ is/has been a great short term investment.

    As a long term investment however, iPod/iTMS is mostly of value for what Apple could turn it into, ie. something which *does* have a longer future. Some seem to imagine that Apple will spend the next decade building the iPod/iTMS business into a digital entertainment empire incorporating Pixar and Disney, and drop out of the computer business altogether. Not impossible, but a bit short on point or purpose. More likely, the iPod bubble will burst and Wall St. will be impelled to go back to the old ways of grossly undervaluing Apple stock.

    I have an iPod. I like my iPod. Like any Apple product, it’s well designed, and well made. But compared to Macs, OS X, QuickTime, Firewire and all the hardware and software which allow one to actually *produce* something (whether with Final Cut Pro or iMovie, Logic or Garageband) the iPod doesn’t amount to much. Mostly, you can listen to music that other people have made (with Logic ” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />.

    In a perfect world, the stock price would stay the same but the object of evaluation would change. But the world isn’t perfect, and that’s not what people are evaluating. Personally, I’m putting my money on “Apple is not the iPod” to become a future cautionary rule about investing.

    Reply

Reader Feedback

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.