Back Over 200 Again
Finally, Apple stock has fully recovered from the pounding it took from the sub-prime shock. It reached $200 back in late 2007, before it plunged to $119, and later to $78 (I bought in a year before the peak at $93). It has slowly been recovering since March of this year, and over the past two weeks it has been hovering at $190, after spending the better part of a month around $185.
Today, after the end of trading, Apple announced huge earnings (in part because of changes in accounting rules), their highest ever–almost $10 billion in sales, and $1.67 billion in profit.
Apple shares in after-market trading rocketed to $202.
From a political point of view: the $78 low, by the way, happened on Bush’s last day in office. Under Obama, Apple stock has risen 260%. Not that that means anything significant, but I have been much happier with my stocks going up rather than down.
On top of that, the word is that the new hardware lines should be debuting tomorrow.
You are obviously much more clued in on this stuff than I am, but I did catch these discussions and they really intrigued me about the potential of Apple doing to text and information media what it’s done to music.
Some of the comments are more interesting than the column. I love reading this stuff because by the end of reading it all I feel like I’ve got some insight into a whole other industry, Publishing.
http://www.cringely.com/2009/10/apple-and-the-future-of-publishing-%E2%80%93-part-one/
http://www.cringely.com/2009/10/apple-and-the-future-of-publishing-part-two/
Actually, this is something I have often kicked myself over. I had wanted to buy Apple stock for quite some time, but held back because in the past, I have not handled investing very well. By the time I got over that issue, Apple stock was up to $93. Had I bought when I first intended, I could have bought a small house with the money I would have made by now.
Basic investments are something that I never had much interest in; the subject seems too dependent upon random chance and just raises my blood pressure, so I avoid the subject when I shouldn’t be. But Apple stock was always obvious to me. The company has a great product, pays meticulous attention to quality & detail, has excellent customer service & satisfaction ratings; I could see that they were undervalued, and they say that if you like a product and have faith in it, that’s a good sign for investing. But what was so clear to me was Apple’s market share: it was at 3% just a few years ago, and so had an incredible amount of room to expand. The iPod was just taking off when I first got interested in buying, and the “Halo Effect” was already being talked about. Everything pointed to Apple being an obvious buy–and from its performance even in bad economic times, in addition to iPhone and future product potential, it still seems to be, even at $200 and 10% market share.
I have posted before on Apple’s market share: it is on an upward trend that follows a surprisingly regular pattern. If it were dependent on Vista being bad, that pattern should not look the same way. Apple is bound to keep expanding market share, while the iPhone continues to grow and future products like the tablet could take the company even further.
AAPL’s getting within range of MSFT’s market cap, 178B to 235B. 15% more up and 15% more down and bingo.
This may interest you:
http://www.tracked.com/company/apple_inc/
If Apple is so awesome how come they didn’t come up with this promotion:
http://www.geekologie.com/2009/10/for_your_internal_operating_sy.php
=P