“Following better-than-expected results by Apple (AAPL) last night, and a weaker-than-expected outlook for revenue this quarter, which has pushed the shares down nearly 8%, the activist investors took to the airwaves,” Tiernan Ray reports for Barron’s. “Said [Carl] Icahn, ‘I’ve made a great deal of money buying on these dips of companies I think are no-brainers,” especially when I think the reason for the dip is completely mis-interpreted.’ Icahn’s segment was followed by an on-camera interview with Donald Drapkin, founder of Casablanca Capital/”
“Drapkin was asked by Wapner about Icahn’s remarks on Apple,” Ray reports. “After noting that he’d bought Apple shares years ago when he saw someone with an iPod on the Street, but sold the stock when founder Steve Jobs passed away, Drapkin said that he had been an ‘acolyte’ of Jobs, and couldn’t see the company being as successful without him”
Ray reports, “Said Drapkin, ‘My problem with Apple is that there are better things to buy. If you look at the last earnings release, the iPod is disappearing. People worry that the iPhone is going to disappear, mainly for the same reason, that there’s tremendous competition. And the iPad, which is a brilliant product, is also coming up against tremendous competition. So while the company is going to earn money for a long period of time, and is terrific, I think Carl’s right, I just don’t think without Steve Jobs there’s that next great thing. I think Google (GOOG) has the guys that create the next great thing.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Obviously, Drapkin doesn’t know jack about Apple since he’s worried that “iPhone is going to disappear, mainly for the same reason [as iPod],” a reason that he clearly doesn’t understand in the first place because standalone iPod sales are “disappearing” because every iPhone and iPad is an iPod, too.
Just counting iPhones and iPads, Apple sold 77 million “iPods” last quarter alone.
If you believe in the maxim “invest in what you know,” Drapkin was smart to sell Apple. He never should have bought any at all.
Yes, there have been missteps, more than we’d like or than we expected (Maps, Browett, iMac drought, etc.), and, yes, without Steve Jobs, Apple will never be the same, but people who underestimate Tim Cook’s Apple are in for a rude awakening.
Patience. Not much longer now.