MacDailyNews Note: Make that three new highs. Moritz shat this one out before Apple posted all-time closing and intraday highs today.
Moritz continues, “In fact, Apple has been on a winning streak for the past decade, ever since its audacious co-founder Steve Jobs reclaimed the top post. Apple’s long ride atop the pinnacle of cool has a can’t-miss quality to it; a gravity-defying feel of permanence.”
“But beware of the backlash… It’s inevitable. The life cycle of tech giants is brilliant and brutally short. Today’s consumer electronics leaders are tomorrow’s fossils,” Moritz writes. “In the 1970s, Atari was considered infallible, bringing video games out of the arcade and into the home with joysticks and consoles. But by the 80s, rivals Sega and Nintendo got the hot hand, and Atari was deemed uncool. Cool is the whipped confection that Jobs has built the Apple kingdom on, but even the sweetest empires fall.”
Moritz writes,” Apple shares have had a tremendous run, and here are four reasons to sell the stock and bank your gains.”
• Macs: Thanks to a more stable Windows 7 operating system that borrows some good looks from Apple, PCs aren’t so bad anymore. The rush to convert to Macs has quieted down thanks in part to a bevy of improved PCs… Apple’s market share slipped slightly in the fourth quarter to 7.5% from the 7.7% level it held in the year-ago period, according to Gartner. A big hurdle to Apple’s mass market success is its incompatibility with PC software, but an even bigger barrier is the shocking contrast in prices. You can buy two PCs for the price of one Mac.
MacDailyNews Take: Not factually based as Mac unit sales continue to hit all-time records while maintaining *gasp* healthy margins. (Sell all the low-, no-, and negative-margin netbooks you want, PC box assemblers. Have fun in bankruptcy court.) Market share as Moritz is using it is meaningless. Macs can slum it with Windows at any time and thereby are the world’s most compatible personal computers; Macs run the world’s largest software library. Therefore, Macs are fully compatible with “PC software.” Again, Mac unit sales continue to hit all-time records despite the sticker price discrepancy. Given the record Mac sales that Apple is currently posting, it would seem that more and more people are learning how to correctly assess total cost of ownership and the full value equation before wasting their money on yet another piece of junk Windows PC.
• iPhone: Apple’s 4th version of the iPhone… is due this summer, and it’s not likely to be any different than the past three… Apple says it has sold 40 million iPhones and analysts estimate the company enjoys lavish 58% gross margins on the device. In comparison, Research In Motion(RIMM) sees 43% margin on its BlackBerries. The iPhone is a lucrative franchise for Apple and its strongest growth engine. But without a new market — like the one Verizon would open up — or a striking redesign, holding these peak levels will be a challenge.
MacDailyNews Take: Again, with no mention of the tremendous headroom that the smartphone market enjoys, the phrase “holding these peak levels will be a challenge” is meaningless, not to mention wrong. 40 million iPhones in a drop in the bucket compared to how many potential smartphone sales exist. There are plenty of new markets (and potential customer in existing markets) for iPhone to grow even without bringing iPhone to Verizon in the U.S.; a large market to be sure, but not the only large market in the world.
• iPad: After working on its highly-anticipated tablet device for three years (or more), Apple unveiled an expensive e-reader… The iPad is both an oversized iPod Touch [sic] and an under-powered netbook.
MacDailyNews Take: One of Scott’s four reasons to sell AAPL is his inability to understand what iPad is and how it will not only change multiple industries, but also positively affect Apple’s bottom line? Uh, okay. Oh, yeah: iCal’ed.
•
MacDailyNews Take: After promising us four reasons, Mortiz only gives us three. We kid you not. If Slipshod isn’t, it should be Scott’s middle name.
Moritz writes, “Apple thrived during the downturn on the strength of a great Mac and iPhone product cycle, earning its 145% stock appreciation last year. Today, with the stock around $200, Apple sits at a lofty market value of $189 billion, 57% more than PC giant Hewlett-Packard. Investors like to call the stock’s premium valuation ‘the Apple tax.’ It might be time for your refund.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We have no idea whether Apple’s stock will continue its current run or not, but if it pulls back, it won’t be for any of the silly, wrongheaded, and factually bereft reasons Moritz scribbles about above.
Imagine the spawn of John Dvorak and Rob Enderle: Bald and brain damaged, chained out of sight to a chair in the cellar. One day, what used to pass for a portly boy in the U.S. shows up with a Baby Ruth candy bar that he tries to share with the poor creature. Alas, his attempted candy toss falls just short of the pitiful thing‘s reach. The enraged Dvorakerle rips off his chains, swallows the chocolate bar whole, and escapes into underground caves — only to one day land a job at TheStreet.com.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Hayward T.” for the heads up.]
Very tempting
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Yea, sure- I have my stock and it continues to go up. Apple is a long term stock.
In one ear and out the other!
I’ll keep my stock. Thank you very much. Apple will continue to kick ass and take names!
I want a job where I can just make shit up!
As long as IDC and the others continue to not count iPhone, iPod touch and the iPad as computers, Apple will not impress this guy and others. BUT, the iPad will rip the heart out of the netbooks and will be cloud computing using Apples BILLION DOLLAR SERVER FARM.
Keep your head in the sand and continue to consider Apples OS X devices that are not burdened with OS routines that it doesn’t need as non computers. Clueless idiots!
Another article written about Apple by someone who probably hasn’t ever owned an Apple product.
Apple will go down, as much because of some profit taking as some manipulation. However, the fundamentals are strong and it’s future is extremely rosy!! It will climb to much greater heights. You can sell and take profit and buy in when it drops a bit and make a little extra money, or you can do the “long-term hold” and make money.
Actually Apple’s only been on a winning streak for half of the past decade. The first half was the hard slog of putting the pieces in place.
Scott Moritz is a known putz.
Is a motorcycle a non vehicle because it has only 2 wheels and cars have 4? Apple will add the unnecessary OS X routines as they are needed in their mobile devices and the AppleTV. Why take up RAM with something that is not being used. Steve Ballmer and Microsoft wish they could do that with Windows.
Go to Google and start typing Scott Mortiz. The first suggested autocomplete is “Scott Moritz idiot”. I’m not making that up.
This is the same Scott Mortiz who spread the false iPhone sales numbers when it debuted. See this classic article: http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2007/08/05/more-on-scott-moritz-and-the-jim-cramer-street-misinformation-engine/
Here’s another Moritz Miss™: http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/07/22/verizon-to-carry-the-apple-tablet/
And another: http://gizmodo.com/312052/the-street-predicting-a-13+inch-macbook-on-leopard-os-x-launch-day
Bzzzzzz, bzzzzz, someone get the fly swatter.
Did I miss or does Moritz not state his current position in AAPL? Could he hmmm, be short? Naawww, never, not an upstanding guy like Scott.
This guy is about as useless as Endrool and all his ilk. They sit in a cubicle and reveal to the world how clueless they are.
The iPad is going to outsell everything Apple has ever produced, including iPods, iPhones and Macs. The shockwave of what the iPad is and will be is going to destroy the print industry while invigorating the content providers, decimate netbooks, probably put RIM, Palm and many other hanger’s-on out of business, and become the device that makes Apple THE premier tech company of the world. Kind of like Pixar became THE premier animation company.
Apple’s stock is going to pass $300 a share this year and after the holiday sales numbers are published, it will rapidly climb to the $400 mark next year.
Remember these days folks; these are historic days and times like few in history.
MDN, you really need to think about your wording more often, if you want to appear more credible and reasonable. You do this all the time. Just saying the equivalent of “Our prediction is just plain right and this person’s prediction is just plain wrong.” .. is pretty nonsensical. You talk as if you already know the outcome of future events. Somewhat ridiculous, it could be argued.
Sloth loves Chunk!
This guy is probably the same “guy off the street” who told everyone to sell AAPL at $4.75 in 1997… I’m sorry Moritz, but your voice can not demeaner the company nor does your views go deeper than a simple “technology changes=technology companies are bad, and not long-term”. I’m sorry, but false, Apple is ever changing, and with $50 billion in cash, yeah, this company can do so much, and not going anywhere but up it appears as of now.
He doesn’t seem to understand the issues (or business in general).
People aren’t buying Macs or iPhones because they’re cool. Clearly people are buying them because the customer is getting value from the products (like in any other business).
Apple has consistently opened up new markets. When the iPod market was starting to get saturated, they brought out the iPhone and iPod Touch, boosting average selling price and margins (and funny enough, even this “mature” iPod market is worth 10,000,000 units per quarter — not bad).
They don’t need Verizon to drive sales (presumably AT&T;has made it worth their while to be exclusive, if that ever changes, expect exclusivity to end).
In what other market is being able to charge MORE than the competition for your product a bad thing?
In what other field would a company with a large R&D;department let their competition violate key patents, WITHOUT suing?
Why would he think the iPad is aimed at the Kindle market?
Considering it’s only $500, why not look at what the iPad actually does: web browsing, email, photo management, playing videos, word processing, Facebook — all things normal people want to do on a computer. Look at what is missing: viruses, re-installs of the OS, hard drive crashes, etc. Sounds like it could be a winner.
dude moritz is terrible.. he was ripping into apple in 2009 saying how over valued it was, they couldnt sustain growth etc… email to him
no more bashing apple? Reply |Ara Abrahamian to Scott
show details 6/1/09
fromAra Abrahamian <ara.abrahamian1@gmail.com>
toScott Moritz <Scott.Moritz@thestreet.com>
dateMon, Jun 1, 2009 at 6:32 PM
subjectno more bashing apple?
mailed-bygmail.com
hide details 6/1/09
the article and negative sentiment has really come to a halt.. I wonder why that is?
A stock I dont want to own.. 3 months ago. who said that?? LOL
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having good fun but you were so wrong, its not even funny
What a total ignoramus. So many childish errors it’s difficult to decide where to start
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And as for his English: “different than”???
It’s “different to”. You can have faster than Windows, bigger than HP, smaller than a PC tablet, more profitable than Dell…. But it’s different TO a logical report. Like it’s also offensive TO an intelligent mind. Ridiculous TO even the most casual technophile.
Surely Microsoft has enough money to pay for writers with more journalistic skill and understanding of the industry basics?
…. unless Steve is putting these guys up himself, just to amuse the faithful and demonstrate the idiocy of the opposition??
Dumb advice !!! Don’t sell.
CONGRATULATIONS MDN !!!
FINALLY A TRIBUTE TO THE DUMBEST MONKEY OF THEM ALL – THE PAINFULlY SLOW AND RETARDED – Scott Moritz.
Please stay on top of him, this guy takes the cake.
The starting price for the iPad is $499. The Kindle DX is $489. So a $10 price difference out of almost $500 makes the iPad expensive and the Kindle DX not? Wow, who knew?
I have Icaled (or whatever you call it) all your responses. Will reprint them one year from now – when Apple dips below 100$. Believe me, it will happen (and please excuse me for any errots, I’m writing this from my iPhone)
Cheers!
What a dick.
The Goonies allegory was great.
@ Alex McKenna … are you British? “Different than” is ok in the U.S.