“Did you sense a certain note of urgency in Tim Cook’s holiday message to employees this year?” Markos Kaminis writes for SeekingAlpha. “I suspect that investors other than Carl Icahn might be murmuring something similar to the tune that turned taboo into truth at Microsoft this past summer. Maybe even because of the imminent change at Microsoft, calls for a change atop Apple (AAPL) might not be long in coming.”
“Apple’s stock performance has been below par since the death of Steve Jobs, and I think many would agree that there’s been a less innovative energy about the company since then as well,” Kaminis writes. “The stock’s valuation certainly shows a less confident outlook among investors. While none of it may be the fault of Tim Cook, who sure seems to me to be a genuine good spirit and leader, it still could lead impatient investors to call for a change in leadership without a quick shift in all of the above at Apple.”
“AAPL has appreciated at a dividend adjusted 53% since October 5, 2011, the day Steve Jobs died,” Kaminis writes. “That seems to show the company did not skip a beat. It does, anyway, until you compare its performance to that of rival Google or even the PowerShares QQQ, which is modeled to match the Nasdaq. Even Microsoft , which has struggled mightily to keep pace with its burgeoning competitors, has outperformed Apple since that tragic day in 2011… In my view, Tim Cook probably has a little more time to show shareholders that his leadership can return the capital appreciation that Apple investors had grown accustomed to… Still, it seems as though Cook will have to follow through in 2014 on the kind of amazing year he spoke about to employees in his holiday message. That is because investors, however enamored with Apple’s history, should be expected to exhibit a show me mentality and a focus on the present with money on the line today.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote last February:
“Those who underestimate Tim Cook do so at their own peril.”
Related article:
Tim Cook memo to Apple employees: We have ‘big plans’ for 2014 that ‘customers are going to love’ – December 23, 2013