“Doomsayers and rumormongers surpassed themselves this past quarter as they noisily called Apple’s most innovative and most expensive iPhone X a dismal failure,” Jean-Louis Gassée writes for Monday Note. “On May 1st, actual numbers told a different story.”
“Apple must be a psychotoxic company, attracting and then unhinging the fragile minds of journalists, bloggers, and analysts,” Gassée writes. “The decades-old routine rose to its highest pitch with the advent of the Smartphone 2.0 era, when Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPhone to chuckling predictions of doom. Since then we’ve been treated to a replay of the Mac vs. Windows, ‘closed vs. open’ defeat and facile predictions of failure under the banner of academic authority because ‘modularity always wins.'”
“The tradition continues with the iPhone X. We’ve been bombarded with ‘news’ items that prepare us for the grand-scale failure of the device: Forbes’ Ewan Spence declares ‘iPhone X Defeated As Tim Cook Steals Victory Away With The iPhone 8’; weak holiday sales means Apple will slash its production target by half according to Nikkei Asian Review; suppliers are jumping ship with such abandon that KGI Securities’ analyst Ming-Chi Kuo predicted that ‘the iPhone X will be ‘end of life’ in the summer of 2018,'” Gassée writes. “On May 1st, Apple’s quarterly report evaporated the auguries. In the report conference call, Tim Cook declared that the iPhone X has been the best-selling iPhone every week since its launch.”
“While iPhone X doomsday predictions depressed AAPL stock price, Warren Buffett bought another 73.5M shares,” Gassée writes. “Apple also benefited from lower prices as it repurchased $23.5B of its own shares in the quarter.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: To some, Apple is as psychotoxic as its share price is usefully malleable.
Wall Street is a game. Play it well via unwritten rules ignored by blind officials or simply observe the resultant melee from the safety of the sidelines. — MacDailyNews, January 13, 2016
SEE ALSO:
Strategy Analytics: Apple’s iPhone X the world’s best-selling smartphone model in Q1 2018 – May 4, 2018
How did analysts and pundits got the iPhone X ‘panic’ story so very, very wrong? – May 4, 2018
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway bought 75 million more Apple shares during the first quarter – May 4, 2018
Why was iPhone X so successful at $999 despite a slew of fake news? – May 2, 2018
Uh, yeah, about those iPhone X ‘concerns’ from analysts: Never mind – May 1, 2018
Apple beats Street with best Q2 ever – May 1, 2018
Apple’s iPhone X isn’t selling well – or is it? – April 21, 2018
Apple’s iPhone X to be discontinued this year, analyst claims – April 20, 2018
Morgan Stanley: Apple stock may fall on ‘materially’ weaker iPhone sales – April 20, 2018
Apple’s iPhone X made 5 times the profit of 600 Android OEMs combined – April 18, 2018
Apple’s iPhone captured 86% of global handset profits in Q417; iPhone X alone took 35% of global handset profits – April 17, 2018
Bernstein: Ams AG is biggest winner in Apple’s TrueDepth Camera system – April 10, 2018
Apple’s iPhone X is the UK’s most popular smartphone – April 9, 2018
Apple’s iPhone X sales continue to disappoint, some analysts say – March 22, 2018
Ignore the iPhone X naysayers – March 10, 2018
Will the naysayers admit they were wrong about Apple’s iPhone X? – February 5, 2018
Do iPhone X sales spell trouble for Apple? – January 30, 2018
Apple supplier says report of iPhone X production cuts was overstated – January 30, 2018
Another January, another misleading iPhone supply cuts story from Nikkei – January 29, 2018
Apple stock drops after Nikkei report of iPhone X production cut – January 29, 2018
Reports of Apple cutting iPhone X orders make no sense – January 2, 2018
Apple stock tumbles on one poorly-sourced report of low iPhone X demand – December 26, 2017
Apple and suppliers shares drop on report of weak iPhone X demand – December 26, 2017
” ‘Warren Buffett bought another 73.5M shares,’ Gassée writes. ‘Apple also benefited from lower prices as it repurchased $23.5B of its own shares in the quarter.’ ”
A coincidence? Sure it was. Those crazy rumors foisted on poor whittle AAPL by unhinged analysts…allowed crufty ol’ Warren and Apple to buy a buttload of shares at depressed prices.
You think Apple manipulated it’s own stock somehow? Do you worry about chemtrails too?
Sorry, but hedge fund managers and tech bloggers receiving payola are the guilty parties here.
Buffett is the insider’s insider, he does nothing without knowing the shot in advance. Look at his prior “lucky” investments with Bank of America, the Brazilian real, etc., etc.
All of the necessary information was out there. Heck, Buffett could have gotten all of the information that he needed from this forum. If I had had more money, then I would have bought more AAPL, too. As it is, I hold onto what I have and watch it grow over the years.
There will always be manipulation of a stock by those who have it in their interests to do so. But at the end of the day, numbers matter, and those numbers flattened the schemers full stop. Ignore the noise. As an investor, you either believe in Apple (or any company) or you don’t. I’ve been long AAPL for several years now and refuse to allow my belief in Apple get shaken by some huckster with an agenda.
By the same token, an investor must remember to keep one’s emotional attachments separate from investment decisions. If you grow too attached to an investment, then you will tend to follow it down if a company begins to make mistakes.
A deep understanding of Apple products, Apple consumers, Apple culture, and Apple management is key (and most analysts do not possess all four). One of the bellwether issues from me is protection of privacy and user date – if Apple begins to backtrack on those commitments, then I will get worried. Right now, the weakest area is in Apple products – Macs, specifically. Clearly, Apple has fumbled with respect to the Mac Pro and Mac mini. The public discontent with specific Mac design areas, such as the new keyboard in the Mac laptops, warrant attention, but are not too worrisome to me at this point.
Completely agree about keeping one’s emotions in check. Although I have done well with my Apple investment, I would not hesitate to sell should I feel it necessary to do so. That being said, Apple continues to tell a great story. It has the best selling consumer product on earth that generates large profits. It has fast growing service offerings which are now the second largest revenue stream in the company. Soon, Apple Music will overtake Spotify in number of subscribers and Apple Pay is doing very well.
There are always areas of concern – such as the Mac – but Apple is as strong as ever and well positioned for future growth.
This is a prime example of why experts are so despised — they reveal themselves as clueless camp followers, snarling mongrels, sneak thieves, or pompous asses who get away scot-free with their shenanigans and who chortle over our stupidity for giving ’em another chance, for the nth time.
In 2003-2005, I started buying Apple shares. During that time the iPod was starting the get a hold on the customers mindset but the market was hot and cold on the iPod mostly saying the growth was not sustainable and other vendors would take over with better and cheaper devices.
I would buy and sell at opportune moments and made some reasonable profit. Then at one point I decided to sell just before earnings release having seen the predictable FUD drop the stock afterwards. Of course this was when the mini become the #1 hit of the 2004 holiday season and the stock skyrocketed.
From then on, I bought more stock and have ignored all doomsayers and kept onto the holdings. Needless to say it has done remarkable well and despite the ups and downs has grown 2000% since 2007.
There is of course risk but I believe the fundamentals of Apple reduces that risk and the stock has a very average P/E and is not being oversold.
Pipeline Tim is at its best!
Nobody can follow Tim anymore. The pipeline is too vast!
Fucked up headline, right? Wall St, not Apple, is the psychotic party.
From my perspective, this certainly is a period of massive AAPL manipulation.
• Bash AAPL down before the quarterly earnings report.
• As the NY Stock Exchange closes, go on an AAPL buying rampage at the speed of computer circuitry..
• Happy, positive, Apple-Bear-Bullshitters-Are-Blatant-Bozos good news.
• An inevitable rally of AAPL.
• Warren Buffett triggers all out AAPL euphoria.
🎉💥🎊🍾🍻👍💞💋
Stay tuned for scenes from next quarter’s Manipulation episode… 🙄