“A lot of people have missed the boat on Apple Inc. in recent years with the company continuing to grow at a staggering pace,” Ritesh Anana reports for Benzinga. “However, rather than making excuses, great investors acknowledge their mistake and learn from them.”
“Will Danoff, Fidelity Contrafund’s portfolio manager, is among the investors who fall in the latter group,” Anana reports. “Danoff was recently on CNBC to discuss why he made a mistake by reducing his stake in the company and why he feels Apple is still a great company.”
I made a mistake with Apple, frankly, after Steve Jobs passed away. I was very concerned about just the strategic direction that the company might take, and I believe in buying great managers and great leaders. And frankly, Tim Cook and his team have done an exceptional job… And they initially missed the large size smartphones and Samsung had a lead. And there were a couple of years where the earnings slowed down. But with the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus the revenues have re-accelerated, and the company is doing quite well. — Will Danoff, Fidelity Contrafund portfolio manager
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Yup. There was a massive FUD campaign centered around the baseless “Apple can’t innovate” meme that lasted for quite some time, so those who weren’t very focused on Apple might have fallen for it.
As wrote often during that period: Those who underestimate Tim Cook are in for a rude awakening.
Danoff is now awake.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Edward W.” for the heads up.]
I made a mistake with Sandra. I don’t know about Steve.
Fidelity wax s big Apple investor and influenced s huge exodus whit the announcement that they were selling…
Don’t listen to marketmskers, analists, or brokers, one your company and invest accordingly.
Apple is a lifetime winner, there’s no better investment.
Fidelity was a big Apple investor and influenced a huge exodus with the announcement that they were selling…
Don’t listen to marketmsakers, analists, or brokers, know your company and invest accordingly.
Apple is a lifetime winner, there’s no better investment.
“and the company is doing quite well”
Sounds like he’s not fully awake yet.
– The largest publicly traded company on the planet
– Hundreds of billions more valuable than the next few
– THE company that the rest of the computer and phone companies look to for leadership (i.e. what to copy).
“Quite well”!!!?
Yes, quite, an understatement as obvious as can be
quite well should be thriving…..
What kind of flipping’ moron would think that Apple wasn’t capable and wouldn’t release a large screen iPhone? How many times has both Tim Cook and Phil Schiller said, “Making things larger is easy.” So this guy decides Apple may not have a future because competitors already had large screen devices on the market. Exactly which history books was he reading when he determined that Apple would never be able to compete with companies already entrenched in a market?
From my own apologetic POV: I took Steve Jobs seriously when he stomped on smaller iPads. I thought it was hilarious that people would want an iPhone approaching the size of the small iPad. I watched people fumble with bigass Samsung phones and I watched the statistics that did NOT indicate there was any big market for bigass iPhones.
I think Apple balked at bigass iPhones as well. But Samsung fumble/bumbled or insightfully started the bigass phone market, Apple saw their success, small as it was in that size, and relented.
Now a lot of people, to my personal surprise, bought and love their iPhone 6 Plus! I don’t want one. The thing really is bigass in my big hands! No thank you! But I obviously cannot account for a lot of other people’s tastes and behavior. Good move Apple! Glad you started the market Samsung, but as usual your stuff is otherwise uninspired, so bye-bye to your bigass phone sales! Apple does it better yet again.
“A lot of people have missed the boat on Apple Inc. in recent years with the company continuing to grow at a staggering pace,” yup but not this particular person.
Funny thing today, I got a call from one of these broker organizations, wanted me to invest in gold and gave me a long spiel yada yada yada with the repetitive “Listen to me” or “Listen to this” mantra. So I went to tell him something, a nice tidbit about the market and he said “Why should I listen to you, I’m the expert.”
That pretty well ended the conversation.
Oh Kaching, the stock went up.
A salesman saying “I’m the expert”. Hilarious.
The game: Dominate and the sheeple will follow.
Yeah these dry call telemarketing guys (very few women for some reason) just follow a script and they get lost if you move away from the script.
This guy was such a classless “let me lead you down the garden path” act. The other one that I’ve had fun recently is the “we’ve detected that your computer is infected and is operating slow.” that wants you to bring your phone to your computer. They keep phoning and I keep asking them how they can determine that my computer is slow by my phone number. They haven’t been able to answer yet and I doubt they ever will.
Hope you’ve had a good week Derek.
A good week to you too!
I’ve confronted the computer scam people on the phone directly, asking them:
Q: “Am I speaking to a scam artist?”
A: (In broken English) “No, I am Kevin Miller!”
Q: “No, I think I’m talking to a scam artist.”
A: “You don’t know that I am Kevin?”
I hung up and they never called again.
However, I had a jolly good rant at a shill at the other end of the interminable “We must hear from you soon to see how we can lower your interest rate!” scam calls. They didn’t care. They still call twice a day. I expect I’ve had over a hundred of that tired old scam call. *yawn*
Ah that’s a great one….all right one more for the road. Down under every phone company, every single one (at the time) charge for local calls. You phoned across the street you got called. So when I got those tele marketers that called to give me the “best price possible” on my phone bill I said GREAT, I’ll take the one that gives me no charge on the local calls.
Of course they replied that no telecom businesses did that upon which I rattled off a lot that did, just not on the island. When they would get with the times they could phone me back. The funny thing about it, is that shortly after suddenly NO ONE called our place. My flat mate was very impressed.
Before I get serious with a broker I always ask them how much did you make last year. If it was less than mine, then I no listen. The second question is what stocks do you own? If they won’t share that then goodbye.
(I find out these things when they begin to fill in my application.) They want my data, I want theirs. If they are going to manage my money, I want to know what they do with theirs.
That was the best advice I got from a prior business associate who made millions a year. He questioned me on why he should listen to a broker who made 100K a year if he was making 10-20 times more!!! I had never considered that so it blew my naive mind.
Yup, that’s great advice, a friend of mine’s mother got taken to the cleaners by one of these investor types. I had a long talk, essentially telling her to empower herself, learn and invest the rest of the money based on what she learned. A few years later she had quit her job and retired.
It’s not that way for everyone but at least she did it her way, goodness knows there are a lot of scum out there when it comes to investors of other people’s money.
Loved your post, thanks for the dose of common sense.
Come back, Apple Bear Bullshitters! Apologize, promise to be professional in the future and…
Who am I kidding?
ContraFund and Will Danoff have been together since 1988 I believe and Danoff is in the top 10%, maybe 5%, of all time fund manager performance ….. He worked with Peter Lynch …..
As a ContraDund Owner, for many years, I am super glad to hear Will’s honestly, I’ll continue to support ContraVund as long as Will is at the head, he is a class act!