What can I say, you don't have a clue. Open source in many cases not only does not suck, it is the best software available for the task at hand.
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Up 61% from when I bought it under a year ago. Thinking about selling half (sold half my MSFT and INTC yesterday) to lock in some profits. Any opinions?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PJfqQErOLU
How in the heck did it get disabled by request the second I posted it?
I would take some profits. I think AAPL has a bigger downside than silver/gold (SLV/IAU or some mining stocks or physical). Also gold/silver should have a bigger upside. I think Apple is limited, what percentage of the world will pay a premium for their products? Although Apple performance has been amazing, I fear they are leading what could become a commodity.
Apple is able to get 75% of the smartphone profits with only 9% of the smartphone market.
Quote:
In terms of innovation, a product can be defined as a commodity if it reaches a point where improvements do not create additional value. As the product gets better, it reaches a point where customers can no longer absorb the improvements and therefore they become unwilling to pay for them. Thus the price of the product cannot be increased or maintained in the face of competition.
In other words, you can’t get a premium price for a better product.
http://www.asymco.com/2010/11/16/is-...e-a-commodity/
But Apple products are simple to use, the company markets better than anyone else on earth and they do a wonderful job of price-fixing. People pay up for that stuff.
I love my Toshiba laptop. I love my Samsung 3D TV. I love my Samsung blu-ray. I love my Galaxy Nexus and Tablet. I'm not an Apple guy. But There are legions of loyal Apple customers. They've carved out a place for themselves in this market, and when they decide to take over the television market, there's little reason to expect them to fail. If they release a TV that is fully integrate with their other devices and it's simple to use, they'll market the hell out of, build interest, and sell units faster than they can produce them.
It's silly not to hold some AAPL at this point.
If you're working with digital media, it's hard to go wrong with Apple. And generally the less tech savvy someone is, the better Apple is for them. I've got 70-something year olds in my family who swear by their Apple products. They were technologically illiterate before buying iPads. Now they send me recommendations for documentaries to stream on Netflix and Zeitgeist'ish movies on youtube. That Apple has managed to win millennials and the elderly means something.
You may be right, but in the end not everybody will be able to keep up with their spending behavior on Apple's expensive products.
As an investment, Apple could maintain its profits, but it cannot maintain its growth. Its growth rate is already going so fast, that it would have to triple its customer base, or double the consumer's spending to maintain its growth for the next 5 years.
apple makes horribly restrictive products - no flash on ipads , have to use itunes to use ipod
history shows us that the more restrictive the platform the more it is dominated by the freer platform
we now see android annihilating the apple OS in the smartphone arena
apple goes down from here and not before time , their products are horrendously overpriced restrictive and appeal to egotistical consumerism addicts
The grandma sell signal is good, I tend to wait till taxi drivers give me stock tips. However, never underestimate how long people will continue buying when clear excess is obvious. You certainly saw that with the American housing boom and the Chinese stock crash.
Apple has a closed system, including hardware. They will ultimately be beaten by open platforms like Google/Android. Android has obliterated Microsoft in the smartphone market. MS had that market 3-4 years ago with their closed architecture. Android sales now exceed Apple IPhone sales, but not profit$%. There's a lot more Android apps than iPhone apps.
Google has started making laptops. It's a weak showing initially, but give them time. As soon as Google starts capturing about 5-10% of the laptop market, sell Apple.
BTW, I'm typing this on the new Windows 8. The combination of the Metro interface and traditional Windows 7 is absolutely horrible.
I bet your Grandma can't do anything at all on Windows 8. Try it!
There is definitely room for growth for Apple. China is first on the list. 16% of Apple's profit came from China which only has 4 Apple stores currently. They are also rabid brand buyers. I just read that one of China's mobile phone companies has over 650 MILLION subscribers and they don't even sell the iPhone yet. India would be second on the list for untapped markets. Third is the United States. Apple only has 10% of the smartphone market in the States.
I just wished that I had money at the time to buy the stock at $5 a share when Steve came back instead of at $51 a share. I could have friggin' retired instead of having enough money to buy a house without financing.
I ended up selling 9 shares yesterday. Hopefully there will be a pullback this week (finally) and I can buy them back for cheaper.
Henry ford said he wanted to build the best product , at the cheapest price , whilst paying the highest wages possible.
All Apple is doing in completely undermining the people who buy their products.I remember Jobs said those jobs were 'never' coming back , well Apple has 80 billion in the bank so thats a fair sign they could make the thing anywhere they wanted , paying good wages and still pull a profit.
How could Jobs call himself a Buddhist when he was largely responsible for the human suffering caused in the Foxconn plant , the plant where suicide nets had to be erected so people would stop killing themselves there.
Screw Apple , screw all'yall who invested in them , my money is in gold and silver and gold and silver mining stocks only.
Never short a bubble before the downtrend has set in. It's just like catching a falling knife.
My point was that although you and I may prefer different operating systems, that is based on personal preference and that Windows is not universally bad, if you prefer it. I enjoy configuring settings. I do not want to have something that I just plug in and it just works. I never buy pre-built computers, I always put them together, piece-by-piece, because that is a hobby of mine. You can't build a Mac, so I build PCs.
If I ever ended up receiving a computer with a pre-installed operating system, I would write the drive to zeros and install a fresh copy of the operating system, because I do not want to be sandboxed into someone else's boxed in configuration -- I want to tweak each setting on my own, to my liking. That's just my preference, and my preference is not better than yours... it's just an opinion. Windows is not universally bad, because it gives me the ability to configure and tweak everything, which is a feature that I desire. If there is something that you just plug in and it works, I would have to break it down and check all the settings to make sure it was set just how I wanted it. That's just how I prefer to compute.
I want a precisely tuned tool, not an appliance which you just plug in and it works ...and works the way the manufacturer wants it to work, not how I want it to work. For this reason, I do not buy Macs or pre-built computers such as Dell or HP computers. It's like how some people buy cars to drive them to get places only, and some people are mechanics that like to fine tune them. There is no wrong way to use them, it is just preference. I do not tweak my car, I use it to get places only. But I like to fine tune my computer.
I respect design software, it is very useful for productivity and creation. Design software does often run on both Windows and Mac though, so again it is more about personal operating system preference, not that one just doesn't work or anything like that.
HAHAHA!! Definitely time to sell! In all seriousness though, if you had aapl for a while or just a few months, it would be smart to start locking in some of your profits.
Bumping this thread. When I started this thread AAPL was trading above $600, now it's trading at $518. I didn't have the balls to go short, though.
My dad invested a large sum into aapl at the highs. I tried to convince him against "picking stocks" and at the very least go into low cost index funds if he was going to play the stock market casino and not have a decent sum of pms. Plus, he used the scum of the earth brokerage firm that charged him 4% commission to buy and sell aapl!!!! With the insane brokerage he is down nearly 25%. I told him from the beginning that it wasn't going to work out and that he better be ready to lose 30% or more but didn't listen to me. Now its all a matter of waiting for him to sell, at that point, this stock will become a buy.
Screw Wallstreet. I am so sick of them ruining lives and taking their personal savings. It just makes me so angry when they are hurting the people I love, and there is nothing I can do about it.
I had a similar conversation back a while back. A non-technical friend of mine told me there was some ridiculous projection for Apple stock and that the article said it was never coming down, blah, blah, blah in some article in WSJ or similar. I told him, if that's what they are peddling that means it's past its prime and it's time to sell.