Apple Inc. [NASDAQ:AAPL] vol. 8

  • Ecco la 60° Edizione del settimanale "Le opportunità di Borsa" dedicato ai consulenti finanziari ed esperti di borsa.

    Questa settimana abbiamo assistito a nuovi record assoluti in Europa e a Wall Street. Il tutto, dopo una ottava che ha visto il susseguirsi di riunioni di banche centrali. Lunedì la Bank of Japan (BoJ) ha alzato i tassi per la prima volta dal 2007, mettendo fine all’era del costo del denaro negativo e al controllo della curva dei rendimenti. Mercoledì la Federal Reserve (Fed) ha confermato i tassi nel range 5,25%-5,50%, mentre i “dots”, le proiezioni dei funzionari sul costo del denaro, indicano sempre tre tagli nel corso del 2024. Il Fomc ha anche discusso in merito ad un possibile rallentamento del ritmo di riduzione del portafoglio titoli. Ieri la Bank of England (BoE) ha lasciato i tassi di interesse invariati al 5,25%. Per continuare a leggere visita il link

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sostiene Nigam Arora:

The increasing complexity of smartphone hardware may be generating investing opportunities. But investors need to have a clear idea of what exactly counts as hardware and who is doing it well, so in a two-part series, I will look at these to aspects, and in Part II look at the companies that may be places for investors to put their money.

Apple has demonstrated over each successive generation of its iPhone that hardware alone does not make a great smartphone. The software and ecosystem are equally critical. Moreover, it is the elegant integration of the three that has made Apple the largest company by market capitalization in the world.

Samsung, meanwhile, has come a long way, but it still does not quite match Apple's tight integration of hardware, software, and ecosystem. This hasn't changed with the introduction of the brand new flagship phone Galaxy S5 by Samsung.

In many ways, hardware specs of Galaxy S5 predecessor Galaxy S4 where superior to Apple's flagship phone iPhone 5s, but the new Galaxy S5 hardware specifications leave iPhone 5s in the dust.

The most visible piece of hardware on a smartphone is the screen. The iPhone 5s has a 4-inch display compared to 5.1-inch display on the Galaxy S5. There is much debate about what screen size is better. Ultimately, it comes down to personal preference. Those who use their phone mainly for talking prefer a small screen. On the other hand, those who use their phone for texting, browsing, emailing, and other computational tasks prefer a larger screen.

There is no denying that the iPhone 5s screen has a much inferior resolution of 1136 x 640 compared to full-HD resolution of 1920 x 1080 of the Galaxy S5. Even a casual consumer, who has not bought their phone for its graphics, can see a noticeable difference between the videos on these two phones.

The power users who tend to have many apps open, including some that involve complex computations, will notice how superior Galaxy S5 CPU and RAM are compared to iPhone 5s. The heart of iPhone 5s is a dual-core 1.3 GHz chip compared to a quad-core 2.5 GHz processor in Galaxy S5. Galaxy S5 comes with 2GB of RAM compared to 1GB in iPhone 5s.

For those interested in photography, the Galaxy S5 comes with a 16 megapixel rear camera compared to an 8 megapixel camera in iPhone 5s. Even the front camera is significantly better in Galaxy S5 at 2.1 megapixels compared to 1.2 megapixels in iPhone 5s.

In video recording, Galaxy S5 has made a leap to 4K. 4K is the name given to an increasingly popular new video standard at a resolution of 3840 x 2160; iPhone 5s is still stuck in the dark age of 1080p.

Most consumers will find a very important difference in the battery. Galaxy S5 comes with 2800 mAh battery compared to 1570 mAh for iPhone 5s. Samsung promises talk time of up to 21 hours, standby time of 390 hours and 10 hours of LTE browsing. iPhone 5s promises 10 hours of talk time on 3G, 250 hours of standby time, and 10 hours of browsing time on LTE.

A big advantage of Galaxy is that it has a microSD slot that allows the addition of up to 64 GB of storage. iPhone 5s has no expansion slot.

Another plus for the Galaxy S5 is that it comes with 3 sensors that do not exist in iPhone 5s, a Hall Effect sensor, a gesture sensor, and a heart rate monitor. The Galaxy S5 also comes with a near-field communication (NFC) chip. iPhone 5s does not support NFC, which is becoming popular for payment systems such as mobile payments.
 
diversificazione entrate

Evidence That Apple Intends To Start Mobile Payment Processing
LowRiskValue
Value, long only, special situations

Feb. 27, 2014 5:29 AM

Recently, there has been talk that Apple (AAPL) is stuck in a trading range until a major catalyst is announced. Based on the evidence below and in a prior article I wrote in December (link is below), it appears that Apple is going to enter the Mobile Payment Processing business. Katy Huberty of Morgan Stanley, who has a history of making good calls, has predicted an announcement by June.

Mobile Payment Processing is a natural for Apple and would diversify Apple's revenue. It has huge growth potential, and payment processing companies sell for higher P/Es than Apple (see the P/E comparison below). If it causes Apple's Forward P/E to increase from 11.3 to 12.9 (I chose 12.9 because it is Microsoft's Forward P/E as of 2-25-14, and surely not too much to hope for), that would be about a $74 per share increase. I am overweighted in Apple, and urge you to look at the evidence below and comment if you have an opinion or insight concerning the potential impact Mobile Payment Processing could have on Apple's stock price.

Below is part of the evidence I have collected. I think the quotes by Tim Cook and Carl Icahn below are consistent with the other evidence. It appears to me that Apple has already hired people to run payment processing (see number 3 below) and that Mr. Icahn knows it is coming, and apparently Katy Huberty does too (see number 4 below). I would try iPay (or whatever Apple calls it) and I think most other iPhone owners would too. I have no doubt Apple can do mobile payment processing better than PayPal.

I think a major perception problem for Apple is that most people seem to consider it a "hardware company" without much growth potential and with too many eggs in one basket. What isn't being considered is the potential that Apple has due to its loyal upper-income customer base and 500 million iTunes accounts. Credit card security is an issue that is being widely discussed today, and retailers want improvements in credit card security because they lose money every time there is a chargeback for fraud.

Lots of companies are working on mobile payment processing, but none of them are as strong as Apple when it comes to a loyal customer base, name recognition, customer trust, financial and technical capability, and of course, Apple controls the smartphone that is used for most mobile purchases. Apple could start as a facilitator of secure credit card transactions on iPhones - Apple would get a small fee for each transaction, like PayPal does, but not try to be a credit card company like Visa (V), at least not initially. Apple does, of course, have the potential to do much more.

Evidence That Apple Intends to Start Mobile Payment Processing

Apple is very secretive, but evidence points to the company entering the payment processing business this year. Below is some of the evidence I have found:

1. An article on Time.com on 1-30-14 by Martha White titled "Apple's Next Big Thing Could Be Allowing You to Easily Pay for Stuff" says:

"In the wake of the Target and other big data breaches, retailers and banks are making the case that we need more secure purchase methods. But since they can't agree on who's going to pay for all the associated costs, consumers are pretty much stuck with the antiquated system we've got for the time being. Could Apple come to the rescue? Apple CEO Tim Cook hinted at the possibility when he said mobile payments were an idea that "intrigued" the company. "You can tell by looking at the demographics of our customers and the amount of commerce that goes through iOS devices…that it's a big opportunity on the platform," he told investors on the company's quarterly earnings call this week."

The Time article also quotes Carl Icahn -- "We believe a revolutionary payments solution is now a very real opportunity that the company could choose to pursue," Carl Icahn wrote in an open letter to Apple shareholders last week. Icahn is openly lobbying for eBay to jettison payments platform PayPal, for which he told TIME, Apple could be a "serious" suitor."

2. "Apple is not a hardware company," Tim Cook said at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference in San Francisco (February 2013 ). "Because we're not a hardware company, we have other ways to make money and reward shareholders," he said. Source - Business Insider, Owen Thomas, 2-12-13

3. From iPhoneHacks.com on 1-25-14, an article titled "WSJ: Apple Prepping Mobile Payment Service" writes:

"Apple is building the infrastructure for a mobile payment service, claims the Wall Street Journal. Executives such as Eddy Cue, Apple's VP of Internet Services, have been meeting with other industry leaders to discuss the possibility of Apple processing mobile payments for physical goods and services. People with knowledge of the situation claim the company has moved executive Jennifer Bailey from her position in Apple's online storefront to a new role that'll oversee the development of a payment business. Apple allegedly spoke to five other executives in the payment industry before selecting Bailey for this role. "Apple is absolutely the sleeping giant in the payments world," said Denee Carrington, analyst at Forrester Research. "They have the capability; they just haven't tied it all together." A recent Apple patent application reveals how Apple may enable a mobile payment service using its iBeacon technology. In this method, the phone would initiate a secure connection via Bluetooth or NFC to a point-of-service terminal that'll process the payment."

4. From Tech Trader Daily on 1-21-14:

"Morgan Stanley's Katy Huberty... writes that she expects new services this year from Apple, including a mobile payments service, which should receive its debut by the June developer conference."

I have posted a lot more information and links about this subject in the Comments to an article I published on Seeking Alpha on December 11, 2013 titled "Why Apple's Next Big Innovation Might Be iBeacons And Mobile Payment Processing." That can save a lot of time if you want more information on this subject.

Why Apple Can Do Payment Processing on iPhones Better Than Anyone Else

There are hundreds of companies that have the technical ability to create a mobile payment processing app, but that is not the key to success - a successful system requires both stores and customers to sign up. I have read that there are over 100 companies working on mobile payment processing, but all of those companies, even Google (GOOG) and PayPal, lack one or more of the things listed below:

1. Apple has the cash to hire as many people as necessary to make it work without having to raise any money.

2. Apple has almost 100% name recognition. No one will ask "Who is Apple?" or say "I've never heard of them."

3. Apple has a very loyal customer base. I will try its payment system and millions of other Apple customers will try it within 30 days of it coming online. Apple has a built-in customer base ready to launch in a big way, and retailers know that. That helps ensure success. All it will take is for one national retail chain in each category (grocery, department stores, etc.) to sign up, and the others will follow because they will be afraid their competitors will gain an advantage if they don't.

4. Customers and retailers trust Apple to get it right and to not screw up or invade their privacy. I think that is important after all the news about hackers and the Target (TGT) credit card data being stolen. Apple already protects 500 million credit cards in iTunes accounts and can spend whatever is necessary to create a hacker-proof system. If it costs $5 billion, no problem.

5. Apple controls the smartphones that most upper-income people own in the U.S., and retailers know this.

I think Apple may have been planning this for years, and that is why it didn't install NFC in iPhones (even though it was pressured to) and why it developed iBeacon technology.

Comparison of Apple to Microsoft (MSFT), Google, Amazon (AMZN),eBay (EBAY), and Visa

Company F P/E Cash Op. CF
Apple 11.3 $41B $52B
Microsoft 12.9 $83B $28.2B
Google 19.9 $58B $19B
Amazon 84 $12.5B. $5.5B
eBy(PPal) 16.5 $9B. $5B
Visa 21.8 $4B $7.4B

Source: Yahoo Finance Key Statistics on February 25, 2014.

Microsoft is included to show that Apple's Forward P/E is now even lower than Microsoft's. Visa is included to show how the market values payment companies that have strong balance sheets. eBay is included because it owns PayPal. Google and Amazon are included to show how the market values perceived potential and buzz. (The numbers in the above table are simplistic, but they make the point. Cash doesn't include long-term investments - Apple has $118B. F P/E is Forward P/E. Op. CF is Operating Cash Flow ttm.)

A Catalyst That Should Raise Apple's Share Price

I think the official announcement that Apple is starting Mobile Payment Processing should raise the share price. Mobile Payment Processing has huge growth potential, and Apple is very well-positioned to be successful. It will cause analysts to re-think Apple's potential, create a reason for optimism, and prove that Apple can do more than just hardware. Two criticisms of Apple are that it "can't innovate any more" and that it lacks diversification. In the quote in the Evidence section above, Carl Icahn mentions a "revolutionary payments solution" - that would certainly qualify as innovative. I won't speculate on the amount of actual earnings that might result, but from the table above, it is apparent that Apple's Forward P/E is much lower than Google, Amazon, and companies engaged in payment processing that have strong balance sheets, and it is now even 12% lower than Microsoft (as of 2-25-14). If Apple's P/E increased even a little, the share price increase could be significant. For example, if Mobile Payment Processing causes the market to have a more favorable view of Apple and results in P/E expansion to even 12.9 (the same as Microsoft), Apple's price per share would increase by about $74 (based on 2-25-14 data). A 12.9 P/E is still at least 20% lower than any company listed above, except for Microsoft.


Apple Inc. (AAPL) news: Evidence That Apple Intends To Start Mobile Payment Processing - Seeking Alpha
 
Ieri il supporto statico nero a $ 516.04 è stato sollecitato ma ha retto, oggi la reazione
 
German court dismisses €1.57B lawsuit vs Apple
• 4:21 AM

A German court has thrown out a €1.57B ($2.15B) lawsuit that accused Apple (AAPL) of infringing two patents that allow mobile phones to make emergency calls even when networks are overloaded.
The lawsuit was filed by Munich-based patent holding company IPCom in 2007.
 
10 Reasons To Avoid Apple's Shares
DoctoRx
Special situations, growth at reasonable price, value, micro-cap

Feb. 27, 2014 11:04 AM

Background: This article continues a string of cautious articles on Apple Inc. (AAPL) which began on the Braeburn Forum in 2012 (in the form of posts from me as moderator) and then on Seeking Alpha beginning last year and continuing with a recent bearish article earlier this month (see below). When I switched from raging bull to bear in the summer and especially early fall of 2012, my opinion was strengthened a good deal when analysts began slashing earnings estimates. At that time, estimates for fiscal 2013 (ending Sept. 30 2013) were well over $50/share. We are now looking at consensus estimate for fiscal 2015 under $47/share, and earnings estimates have been trending down again recently.

Given a stock that continues to set lower reaction highs despite fervent fan support, this pattern should be interpreted cautiously. In a bull move, a stock moves up and generally earnings beat expectations. AAPL is now trending down, and earnings estimates are doing the same.

Investors looking for new money buys should, it is argued below, look for less picked-over names. However, most stocks rise over time when dividends are properly counted, and AAPL has already had a meaningful percentage move down from recent high, so my point is that other stocks look more attractive. As a long-only investor, my argument is not that AAPL is heading lower, merely that the weight of the evidence favors omitting it from purchase for new money, and considering selling it from a performance-oriented portfolio with a short-intermediate term bias. I am thus not in the short AAPL camp.

I believe that there are numerous discrete arguments against AAPL which taken in the aggregate pose problems for AAPL bulls. These anti-AAPL points include the following ten points. Please excuse me for starting a big egocentrically:

1. The overwhelmingly-hostile response to my last AAPL article was bearish from a contrarian perspective. That article, published by Seeking Alpha on Feb. 11 with the stock at $536, was titled Will Apple Emulate Gold's Plunge? It was criticized by numerous commenters, mostly on the grounds that Apple Inc. is very different from a lump of gold, the monetary metal. However, that's so obviously true it hardly needed to be said, but I said it anyway in the introduction to the article:

This article makes the case that even though AAPL and gold are very different assets, the psychology of becoming the world's favored, hottest investment may lead to similar price action ...

Very different assets, indeed. But, technical analysis is all about similar chart patterns for different assets.

The fact that AAPL bull after AAPL bull piled on my otherwise unremarkable article in large part making fun of me for confusing a metal with a consumer electronics company suggests to me that too many of them are a bit overwrought.

I continue to hold to my longstanding analogy that the overwrought finales to the precious metals boom into 2011, and the histrionic AAPL boom into 2012 and even 2013, each sucked in too many newbies who did not understand the assets and why they had been so attractive for so many consecutive years. That phenomenon, which also involved experienced hands stepping aside when the public was drawn in to create a spike top, has been seen many times. It does not matter if the asset is a tech company, a commodity, a currency, etc. The psychology is the same. Trend-followers come in after the media publicizes the massive move that has already occurred. At some point, these trend-followers become "dumb money" and get trapped; and the length and strength of the bull move also keep the true believers (aka smart money) wanting to stay in for the full move, the height of which cannot be known in advance.

For example, the NASDAQ peaked in March 2000, bottomed 2 1/2 years later, then had another bottom in 2003, basically creating a 3 year bear market. Then, except for the 2008-9 liquidation events post-Lehman's failure, it's been bull market action for tech-telecom ever since. Similarly, gold's wilder sibling silver, peaked with a massive spike toward $50/ounce at the end of April 2011, and may have completed a similar 2-3 year bear market. Gold's action has been less wild but not dissimilar. It may be that AAPL shares could be undergoing such a digestive process.

2. The charts are not dissimilar between some of these assets. Let us compare a gold chart, that of the well-known SPDR Gold Trust (GLD) with AAPL:

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The charts from the spike tops for the next 2-3 years also look similar. A strong kickback rally that sucked in the bulls took gold from a peak of $1900 (or so) to $1800. AAPL, which moved much more than gold given its greater dynamism as an industrial company rather than simply an inert monetary metal, had a greater fall, but also had strong sucker rallies after its double peaks to $640-ish and $700+ in 2012. Since then, we continue to see what we saw in gold (and silver), which is lower highs on the enticing rallies.

So far I have not addressed whether I think that AAPL will have a meaningful fall from here. My answer is that since I'm not a short seller and do not think AAPL is a great short selling opportunity for those traders who engage in that pursuit, the answer is that I see the risk of a large drop-off from here as too high to make AAPL a safe entry for new money until more time elapses. The reason for my view is the identical reason many people have the opposing view, namely valuation.

3. The problem with AAPL's valuation: AAPL bulls typically point to a 12X P/E to say how cheap the stock is.
I would suggest that price to earnings ratios have misled more investors than any other valuation metric. This is probably truer now than in prior decades. After all, I began investing in 1979 as a 29 year old. Among the first investment books I read was Graham and Dodd's Security Analysis. As Wikipedia discusses, this 1934 work:

chided Wall Street for its myopic focus on a company's reported earnings per share, and were particularly harsh on the favored "earnings trends." They encouraged investors to take an entirely different approach by gauging the rough value of the operating business that lay behind the security...

To oversimplify, the wreckage found on Wall Street from 1932-4, when the book was being written, allowed numerous corporations' shares to be purchased for less than net working capital. As late as 1955 or beyond, Ben Graham decried the fact that only about 30 such examples could be found on the NYSE. Today there are probably none.

So, AAPL shares are not cheap simply because there is over $100/share in financial assets net of debt on the company's balance sheet. This point would be true if there were no contingent taxes should all foreign financial assets were repatriated, a necessity should taxes be paid out. AAPL shares are not cheap on the basis of earnings some quarters from now, because those earnings have not occurred yet. Furthermore, people may receive dividends or obtain capital gains in taxable form. Investing today often involves paying money that has had a haircut in the form of income and payroll taxes, then paying taxes on the income. Paying after-tax money to receive taxable income means that more money must be returned pre-tax than was invested simply to break even, inflation or competing tax-free interest rates notwithstanding.

AAPL shares are simply not cheap, at least not that can be proven in February 2014.

Actually, here is why the shares are expensive:

4. Apple's price:sales ratio is high for a consumer electronics stock. First, we must look at AAPL's market cap, #1 in the U.S., and note that the net cash and marketable securities on Apple's books represents almost the entirety of its retained earnings. Thus, AAPL's asset concentration in financial assets rather than brick and mortar that it owns itself is not an extraordinary situation. AAPL trades at a fairly normal price:book ratio for a high-quality stock, but in a stock market that trades roughly at one times sales, AAPL trades at about 2.5X sales per share, with slow sales growth assumed for the next year by analysts. This price:sales ratio is a danger point for the shares.

We know from the examples of Blackberry/Research in Motion (BBRY), Dell, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and several Japanese tech consumer electronics stocks that were high flyers decades ago that operating margins of dominant consumer electronics companies can take major sustained hits. This phenomenon tends to have outsized negative effect on price:sales ratios.

AAPL bulls often take its very high profit margins for granted. I do not.

Just this week it was reported that Microsoft (MSFT) is slashing the price of its Windows 8.1 operating system from $50 to $15- and perhaps more, according to other mentions I came across on the Web.

One wonders what the implied price of Apple's iOS is for the iPhone and iPad. Certainly, it's a fine OS. But does Apple have a perpetual monopoly on small device operating systems that meet people's needs? Isn't the latest Android version pretty darn good? What about the future for Samsung's (OTC:SSNLF)tizen? How long can Apple avoid yet lower margins for the iOS line?

These sorts of margin cuts are deadly to profits, especially as Apple expands to less wealth parts of the world than the U.S and other "first world" countries. Apple is going to have to compete on price if it wants meaningful volume. There is no easy answer other than rapid and relentless innovation along with extreme costs reductions.

We have started to see this sort of problem, with earnings estimates tailing off again recently:

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Apple has another problem that few talk about:

5. Vaporware. Through proxies such as friendly analysts, Apple has produced a form of vaporware in a de facto manner without doing so in the overt way that embarrassed a number of other companies in the '90s. Nonetheless, when favored analysts in prior years assured us that a major Apple TV was coming soon, or when we were told that other major devices such as a blockbuster wrist device was coming soon, we were being sold vaporware. How much was Apple Inc. involved in those reports? I don't know, but we did not see Apple definitively refute those optimistic statements.

Worse, we know that Tim Cook, Apple's CEO, has for over a year been promising great new products coming.

Where are these products?

My thought is that with SJ fading before he passed away, there has been a creative vacuum. We know from "Inside Apple" by Adam Lashinsky and other sources that Apple has typically developed new products in a top-down manner. With SJ never coming back, why isn't it quite possible that Apple could have entered into the sort of funk that, for example, gripped Disney (DIS) after Walt left the scene, only returning for good after Michael Eisner took the reins many years later?

The faithful who point to certain innovations that came from Apple in the post-SJ era 1.0 beginning in the late 1980s have to face the fact that when SJ returned in the '90s, the company was more or less bankrupt. But in weighting the uncertain future, we should include the possibility that Apple gets "RIMMed", or just as accurately, that it may go or at least threaten to get "Appled" (circa mid-1990s).

Just look at the strategic mess that Apple has made of the iPhone. The iPhone, and its iOS operating system, stood alone at least in people's perceptions as the only high quality choice for several years. Perhaps Apple could have done with smartphones what Microsoft did to it in desktop/laptop computer operating systems and what Google did in search/advertising. Yet it did its usual Apple thing and kept margins high, generated massive amounts of cash -- all great accomplishments -- but it left the door wide open for Android. What SJ and company accomplished with the iPhone beginning in 2007, including the hardware with the high quality glass touchscreen, was so important that it could and in my view should have led to Apple obtaining a legal monopoly in some aspect of smartphones, but here we are in 2014 and Apple has been marginalized in some important parts of the world in smartphones.

Apple has done better with tablets, but critically it has not deigned to compete in the substantial market for truly large smartphones (often called phablets). It is now not merely late. It is very late, so late that it is clear that both SJ and Tim Cook have made strategic decisions. The phablet, i.e. a large smartphone, serves as both a smart phone and tablet for many road warriors and general consumers in the U.S. In less rich regions, such as in many parts of Asia, finances are often tighter and the phablet is a necessity rather than a choice. Why was this high growth area largely ignored by Apple? Did it really think that making the iPhone a little taller, but retaining the famed one-hand grasp capability (fragmenting the iPhone's aspect ratios by doing so) was a meaningful response to the phablet challenge?

6. The vision thing: President Bush 41 made fun of the "vision thing" in politics. In Apple's field, the vision thing is everything. Think what Mark Zuckerberg et al have done with Facebook (FB). FB's enterprise value is already about half of Apple's. This is incredible. Add in Twitter (TWTR), LinkedIn (LNKD), and a few others and you can see how much Apple has not accomplished. Why has Apple left so much on the table for others to scoop up? Why is Microsoft stock resurging? It's not enough to say that AAPL is up over the past few years. It after all has been living off SJ's accomplishments. The point is that the tech sector related to Apple's field has created vast new stock market value while AAPL has been struggling to maintain its own market value via conventional maneuvers such as share buybacks.

SJ had the vision for the 21st century Apple back in the 1980s. What vision for Apple going forward do Tim Cook and the board have that will surprise and delight not only the faithful but others who now have no interest in Apple?

7. Will a return to growth rescue AAPL? Robert Leitao of Posts at Eventide and founder of the Braeburn Forum argues so, in his recent article on Seeking Alpha and at his own blog in Apple: Net Income Growth Is The Name of The Game.

I would argue against that viewpoint. Apple can grow earnings with a new product and cost costs. General Motors (GM) did that several times on its way to bankruptcy. Many other companies have done that as well. I would argue that Apple needs important new products. Otherwise it looks as though it has become a version of Microsoft but with Bill Gates dead. Apple simply looks as though it is drifting, living off of the ample seed corn that SJ era 2.0 left it. Because the remaining feed was so ample and the image so bright, too many investors have underestimated the possibility that the new team will not come close to accomplishing what Team SJ accomplished.

Given how many hundreds of billions of dollars over book value AAPL trades at, and how high its profit margins are in a very deflationary field, Apple needs rapid growth again to be better than an average stock.

8. However, most of Apple's current business lines are either declining (iPods, computers per se) or not growing fast any more (iPhones and iPads) though they are growing. Other product lines such as e-payments are dreams. One more deflationary force in smartphones and iPhones will start acting like Macs and may start showing no revenue growth sooner than expected.

In finalizing this article, I came across AAPL bear Michael Blair's latest AAPL article, from which I quote:

I have used my crude model of Apple's economics from its current products to ballpark what that might mean in terms of 2017 sales and net income. To do that I have assumed Apple sells 20 million Mac PC'S at an ASP of $1,250; 80 million iPads at an ASP of $400; and, 100 million iPhones at an ASP of $550. I have projected other revenues from software and service etc. at $30 billion continuing its double digit growth path...

The result is an Apple 2017 income statement showing $142 billion in revenues and $23 billion of net income or about $26 a share based on 875 million shares outstanding...

...you might see Apple trading at $350 to $400 before long.

I actually think that in such a scenario, the iPhone could have much lower ASPs, and earnings could at least for a while drop below $26/share. Thus in this sort of scenario, I think that AAPL could drop by half from the current price -- even though a reflex rally may well be overdue right about now given how much AAPL has underperformed the average stock very recently.

9. What has Apple's board contributed lately? I have been critical of Apple's board for some time. I think it grew to trust SJ so much that when he became very ill, it had grown complacent. I'd like to see an activist board. Tim Cook and company need to be held responsible for bring real innovation again to Apple. It's not good enough to live off of Steve Jobs' vision things.

10. Relative values favor other stocks over AAPL: Given the many different ways equities can be assessed, it appears fair to simply say that many other stocks have better price action and earnings trends while also having reasonable valuations, as AAPL can be argued to have. In my view, AAPL is not "safe" to buy on downtrends; and if it were, its upside would by the same token be limited and thus there would be little reason to bother to buy the dip.

I have a diverse portfolio of growth industrial stocks such as Trinity Industries (TRN), which I have written about on Seeking Alpha at much lower share prices, energy stocks, tech stocks, and income stocks, and out of these dozens of stocks, I do not miss not having owned AAPL since early last year. While lacking foreknowledge of what's coming next, AAPL continues to look like yesterday's hot story without follow-through. The examples of companies such as DIS and many others that peaked in one era but did not get hot again for perhaps 20 years makes me cautious in assessing if and when Apple will get hot again.

Conclusion: I stand not with any short-sellers of AAPL but instead with the large group of independent thinkers who see little current attractiveness in this former high-flyer. I have written half a dozen review books for standardized tests; AAPL strikes me as a distracter stock choice just as multiple choice questions often have distracter choices. The company is of course a very strong company, but everyone knows that, and the bears have good arguments as I hope I have demonstrated above. (In this article, I have deliberately avoided making the bull arguments, because we are all familiar with those as well.)

My style is to own undervalued companies which show evidence of turnaround action, either fundamentally or in the marketplace. AAPL may or may not be undervalued, but the action of analysts and of the stock price provide little evidence that a durable bottom in either earnings or the stock price has been reached.

AAPL is therefore an easy stock for me and many other investors to omit from a diversified portfolio of common stocks.

Apple Inc. (AAPL) news: 10 Reasons To Avoid Apple's Shares - Seeking Alpha
 
@seekingalpha

Apple: Steve Jobs Was Right
Mar. 3, 2014 8:21 AM ET

When a company as great and as innovative as Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) loses the visionary that kicked off a once-in-a-generation rags-to-riches corporate reinvention, naturally investors are going to be skeptical that the party can continue. Indeed, without Steve Jobs at the helm, investors have repeatedly claimed that Apple has lost its "innovative" spark. While I vehemently disagree with this (Apple's R&D spend has never been higher), I can understand why investors may not be so hot on Tim Cook after years under Jobs.

That said, Tim Cook was hand-picked by the late Steve Jobs himself and it's becoming apparent - particularly after Apple's general meeting - that Jobs made the right choice.

It's Not About The ROI - Bingo!!
I quote the following from an Ars Technica piece covering Apple's General Meeting that caught my eye over the weekend,

"When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind," he [Tim Cook] said, "I don't consider the bloody ROI." He said that the same thing about environmental issues, worker safety, and other areas where Apple is a leader.

He didn't stop there, however, as he looked directly at the NCPPR representative and said, "If you want me to do things only for ROI reasons, you should get out of this stock."

While this may seem like a pretty trivial concern when discussing a $170 billion-plus company that lives and dies by its ability to command profits in a fast-growing, but highly competitive, mobile devices market, it's really not. Management is the single most important factor that will make-or-break a company/stock long-term.

Technology companies that last long-term are those that are willing to take risks, invest heavily in R&D (even at the expense of short-term profits), and are willing to venture out and explore into new areas, both adjacent to the company's core cash cow(s) as well as ideas that are far out in left field.

Now, Cook would have been impressive enough if he were simply talking about potential R&D projects that end up not bearing fruit, but in this case, he was speaking more broadly, addressing - in one shot - environmental responsibility, accessibility of Apple's products to the disabled, as well as the general notion that not everything Apple does is done solely to maximize ROI.

That, interestingly enough, is exactly the kind of attitude that is the mark of a CEO/management team that knows how to run a rich, profitable, and growing technology company for many years to come. Companies that fail to pursue opportunities and potentially disruptive technologies, and those that fail to want to make life better/easier for others, are those without long-term vision and are - in the long-haul - probably doomed to mediocrity.

Tim Cook Is The Right Man For The Job
Another thing that was noteworthy was reading about just how angry Mr. Cook seemed to actually get at the suggestion that Apple should do things only for profit. Of course, this must have been insulting to Mr. Cook who is head of the most profitable technology company in the world, but the more important point is that sometimes myopically chasing only things that are obviously profitable today leads to tunnel vision. This, in turn, could doom the company's long-term prospects if the underlying markets change.

That said, the real item of note here was that Tim Cook could actually get angry and exhibit some real passion in front of an audience. Many of the criticisms levied against Mr. Cook is that he isn't enough like the passionate Jobs, but it's becoming clearer that Cook's fairly calm public image fails to convey a potentially Jobsian passion for Apple, its products, and its future. This - coupled with an understanding of what Apple is all about - is what it takes to have a shot at filling the very large shoes that Jobs left behind.

And, while the story is far from over, Cook seems to have what it takes to guide Apple through the next generation of challenges and to capitalize on the next generation of opportunities. Steve Jobs appears to have made the right choice - yet again.
 
Anche AAPL ( come tutte le stocks) ha chiuso febbraio venerdì ed ha aperto marzo oggi. ;)


:bow:


real time giornaliero con il fascio di fibo.


Se fai caso hanno aperto in gap down di quasi 3 $ e così facendo hanno saltato due statiche parallele ( verde rossa )
Te lo ingrandisco ...
 

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:bow: OK!
Anche AAPL ( come tutte le stocks) ha chiuso febbraio venerdì ed ha aperto marzo oggi.
Se fai caso hanno aperto in gap down di quasi 3 $ e così facendo hanno saltato due statiche parallele ( verde rossa )

faccio passi da gigante: ora per mettere a fuoco le tue mappe dei sentieri basta che stia a fissarle un (solo) 5 minuti di orologio e poi affiora tutto :D
 
Buonasera, avete un grafico o una tabella con i ricavi divisi per prodotti e magari per aree geografiche di apple negli ultimi anni, vorrei avere una visione riassuntiva dell'andamento dei vari ipod, iphone, ipad e macbook
 
:bow: OK!


faccio passi da gigante: affiora tutto

AAPL 2 h a candela a 20 dalla chiusura.
Tra 20 minuti inizia la terza ( fino alle 21.30)

(Ipotesi: con la prossima, slancio long (fino a 534 + pivot w), poi rintuzzato e di nuovo sotto la dinamica rossa che la sta tappando oggi [ e due sedute fa] parliamo di area 531.90

Più in generale, con il $ TRAN sotto la sua dinamica BLU ( ci deve dare la testata ora sta a 7565 punti, ha un target a 7487 /98) e con S&P500 sui massimi storici assoluti, il sentiment è bearish (vedi open marzo sotto la statica. Siamo in un ipotetico "stoppino" superiore di candela mensile, in formazione [ipotizzata rossa])

Pour parler, by Rw super jmho ( applicate le vostre convinzioni, liberamente )
 

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L'aspetto + complesso da comprendere, è l'aggiustamento della curva, allo stacco del dividendo. Eppure, se uno volesse fare il pignolo, vede anche quello.

;)

le tue mappe dei sentieri basta fissarle 5 minuti di orologio

Giornaliero, gli ultimi 9 mesi. (sotto $530.47 [esce di sotto?])
 

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Avete visto?? Un nostro laureato alla guida delle tesoreria della società più ricca del pianeta.... chi lo avrebbe mai detto :)

Apple, Luca Maestri succede a Peter Oppenheimer nel ruolo di CFO

Sarà l'italiano Luca Maestri a ricoprire il ruolo di CFO presso Apple dopo che Peter Oppenheimer sarà andato in pensione, a fine settembre. Lo ha annunciato la casa di Cupertino tramite il rilascio di un comunicato che riportiamo di seguito.
Apple ha annunciato oggi che Peter Oppenheimer, Senior Vice President e CFO di Apple, andrà in pensione alla fine di settembre. Luca Maestri, Vice President del reparto finanziario e Corporate Controller di Apple, subentrerà a Peter nel ruolo di CFO, e riferirà direttamente al CEO di Apple, Tim Cook. Il passaggio di consegne avrà inizio a giugno: Peter condividerà le proprie responsabilità con Luca per la rimanente durata del suo incarico, al fine di garantire una transizione fluida e professionale.
"Peter ha ricoperto il ruolo di CFO negli ultimi dieci anni, nel periodo in cui il fatturato annuo di Apple è cresciuto da 8 a 171 miliardi di dollari e la nostra presenza globale si è ampliata in maniera esponenziale. Fondamentali per il successo di Apple sono state la sua guida, la sua leadership e la sua competenza, non soltanto in qualità di CFO ma anche in molte aree oltre il settore finanziario, grazie al suo impegno in altre attività volte a sostenere l'intera azienda. Il suo contributo e la sua integrità rappresentano un nuovo punto di riferimento per tutti i CFO delle public company," ha dichiarato Tim Cook, CEO di Apple. "Peter è anche un carissimo amico, su cui ho sempre potuto contare. Benché sia triste per il fatto che ci lasci, sono felice che si prenda del tempo per sé e per la sua famiglia. Conoscendolo bene, eravamo certi che avrebbe creato un piano di transizione professionale per garantire un passaggio di consegne indolore per Apple."
"Luca vanta più di 25 anni di esperienza a livello internazionale nel senior management finanziario, ricoprendo fra gli altri il ruolo di CFO di una public company, e sono certo che svolgerà un eccellente lavoro in qualità di CFO di Apple," ha aggiunto Tim. "Abbiamo incontrato Luca quando cercavamo un Corporate Controller, e abbiamo capito subito che sarebbe stato un ottimo successore di Peter. Da quando lavora con noi, il suo contributo si è già dimostrato significativo, e ha conquistato rapidamente il rispetto di tutti i suoi colleghi in Apple."
"Amo Apple e le persone con cui ho avuto l'onore di lavorare, e dopo 18 anni passati qui, è ora di prendermi del tempo per me e la mia famiglia," ha spiegato Peter Oppenheimer. "Per molto tempo ho desiderato vivere sulla costa centrale della California e partecipare alle attività della California Polytechnic State University, la mia università; trascorrere più tempo con mia moglie e i miei figli; visitare il mondo; e, cosa che desidero fare da moltissimi anni, finire di prendere la licenza di volo."
el suo ruolo di CFO, Peter supervisiona Controller, tesoreria, relazioni con gli investitori, procedure fiscali, sistemi di informazione, audit interni e infrastrutture. È entrato in Apple nel 1996 in qualità di Controller per le Americhe, e nel 1997 è stato promosso a Vice President e Worldwide Sales Controller, quindi a Corporate Controller prima di essere nominato CFO. Mentre il fatturato annuo di Apple si è più che ventuplicato durante il suo periodo come CFO, Peter ha supervisionato lo sviluppo di una strategia finanziaria globale, sistemi e procedure adeguati e un bilancio solido. Sotto la sua leadership, Apple ha costituito un team finanziario di altissimo livello. Peter ha gestito inoltre l'ampliamento delle infrastrutture, inclusi quattro data center e il nuovo campus Apple a Cupertino, tutti alimentati da energia rinnovabile.
Peter è recentemente entrato a far parte del Cda di Goldman Sachs.
Luca ha un'approfondita conoscenza di tutti i principali aspetti della finanza, contando su oltre 25 anni di esperienza nella creazione e nella guida di team finanziari in multinazionali con complessità e dimensioni operative significative. Prima di entrare in Apple, Luca è stato CFO presso Nokia Siemens Networks e Xerox. Da quando, nel marzo 2013, è entrato a far parte di Apple, Luca ha gestito la maggior parte delle operazioni finanziarie della società e si è dimostrato un'eccellente guida, collaborando inoltre a stretto contatto con la senior leadership di Apple.
Luca ha iniziato la propria carriera con General Motors e ha lavorato per 20 anni nel settore finanziario e operativo nelle Americhe, in Europa e nella regione Asia-Pacifico. Durante il suo periodo in GM, Luca ha ricoperto numerosi incarichi per l'ampliamento e il successo del business. Era nel team per il coordinamento operativo regionale di GM nella regione Asia-Pacifico, che prevedeva inoltre investimenti nel settore produttivo in Cina e Thailandia. In seguito è stato CFO del team che ha ristrutturato le operazioni in Brasile e Argentina garantendone il ritorno alla produttività. Il suo ultimo ruolo in GM è stato quello di CFO per tutte le operazioni del gruppo in Europa, che spaziavano in oltre 45 Paesi con ricavi netti annui per circa 40 miliardi di dollari.
Luca vanta uno straordinario background internazionale: ha infatti vissuto e lavorato in Italia, Polonia, Irlanda, Svizzera, Singapore, Thailandia, Brasile e Germania, oltre agli Stati Uniti.
Luca si è laureato in Economia alla Luiss di Roma, conseguendo poi un master in Scienze del management presso la Boston University.
 
Io spero in una risalita delle azioni all'uscita di Iphone 6..
 
(Ipotesi: con la prossima, slancio long (fino a 534 + pivot w), poi rintuzzato e di nuovo sotto la dinamica rossa che la sta tappando oggi [ e due sedute fa] parliamo di area 531.90

L'hanno fatto oggi.
AAPL 2 ore ( grafico delle 2012 ) + grafico in real time 13 minuti a candela.
(tecnicamente sono in fase di pull back, da sopra, per verificarne la tenuta)

Chiusure aperture sopra/sotto questa dinamica ( ora vale 531.65 circa) fanno la differenza.
 

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:clap:L'hanno fatto oggi :clap:
(tecnicamente sono in fase di pull back, da sopra, per verificarne la tenuta)
Chiusure aperture sopra/sotto questa dinamica ( ora vale 531.65 circa) fanno la differenza. OK!

:ave:
 
Indietro