Sell Apple, Buy Microsoft

[MacBytes]

http://www.macbytes.com/images/bytessig.gif (http://www.macbytes.com)

Category: Opinion/Interviews
Link: Sell Apple, Buy Microsoft (http://www.macbytes.com/link.php?sid=20070606220952)
Description:: Each to their own.

Posted on MacBytes.com (http://www.macbytes.com)
Approved by Mudbug

[ero87]

no thanks, i'm keeping my 2 AAPL shares for years to come! :)

[Mykbibby]

I bought 7 shares a week before Macworld...I'm one happy guy!

[Baron58]

That advice isn't taking into account the possibility of a stock split. Apple desperately needs to do a split now to bring their stock price down to more sane levels, which would allow it to climb again. If it's demonstrated that AAPL can trade over $120/share, doing a 2:1 split down to $60/share allows for quite a bit of growth space back up to a level that people were clearly comfortable with before. Of course, EPS will be lower, so it may not make it back up to $120 as easily, but even so, it's the right move.

That said, I want it to hit $150/share so I can sell out and get a new MacBook Pro :D

[flopticalcube]

If Apple split, he would just adjust his charts accordingly. His analysis would not change.

Its all chicken entrails anyways.

[jk8311]

That advice isn't taking into account the possibility of a stock split. Apple desperately needs to do a split now to bring their stock price down to more sane levels, which would allow it to climb again. If it's demonstrated that AAPL can trade over $120/share, doing a 2:1 split down to $60/share allows for quite a bit of growth space back up to a level that people were clearly comfortable with before. Of course, EPS will be lower, so it may not make it back up to $120 as easily, but even so, it's the right move.

That said, I want it to hit $150/share so I can sell out and get a new MacBook Pro :D

Baron - you really need to read Barron's magazine a little. A stock split will do NOTHING in terms of financials for the company. It merely doubles the number of shares and cuts the price, EPS, and every other share-divided number in half.

The only way a stock split would "help" is that it would allow those investors who can't afford one share to then go and buy one or two shares post-split. In other words, given today's price of ~$120, only those people have between $60 and $119 to invest would really be affected. If anything, NOT splitting the stock prices will take the volatility out of the stock since the "stupid" little investors like you and me won't be making the price skip all over the place in the short term. Look at Berkshire Class A (BRK-A) shares - they go for about $110,00/share, have some of the lowest volatility/turnover in the entire market, and yet still continue to return some of the best numbers out there on a consistent, long-term basis. That stock hasn't been split in over 30 years.

But take that one step further - of all the shares outstanding, 70% are owned by mutual funds and other institutions. Trust me, the average little investor who buys one or two shares here and there is NOT moving the price of the stock in the long term. It's those larger institutions who are buying/selling tens of thousands of shares at a time. On average, 40 million shares of Apple are traded every day - that's more than 100,000 shares every minute.

If you really want to make a killing off Apple and can only afford one or two shares, buy options. They can cost as little as $1/share and, if the stock goes up, will net you many times the return you otherwise might get with Apple stock alone.

Sorry for the rant...I don't do it often :-).

-Joe

[twoodcc]

even thought it seems that guy has done some work....i still don't believe that. he's going by trends

[Eraserhead]

even thought it seems that guy has done some work....i still don't believe that. he's going by trends

What innovate growth products is MS bringing to the market? Vista Home Server? But that only appeals to the geek crowd so isn't a big deal.

Whereas Apple has the iPhone a new OS (growth for computers) and if they can make the iPod multi-touch it will be far better than the competition.

[IJ Reilly]

Sorry for the rant...I don't do it often :-).

Don't be. Nice rant. You should try it more often. ;)

The chartists make for interesting reading, if only because they're completely dispassionate. I'm also afraid of a sell-on-the-news reaction to the iPhone release. I'm thinking of setting a stop-loss order on some of my AAPL shares. I will not however be buying any MSFT.

[mainstreetmark]

What innovate growth products is MS bringing to the market? Vista Home Server? But that only appeals to the geek crowd so isn't a big deal.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Surface

[Silencio]

Vista Home Server? But that only appeals to the geek crowd so isn't a big deal.

Vista Home Server has zero geek appeal, and precious little to Joe Average User, either. Geeks would buy a less expensive Infrant ReadyNAS or roll their own with FreeNAS or just their own preferred Linux distro.

And Surface is hardly Innovation on Display. It's more marketing fluff and FUD designed to take the public eye off the iPhone, really. The demos looked great, but the underlying "tech" is laughable and I can't think of a single pressing user problem that this thing would solve. I saw homebrew weekend projects at the Maker's Faire last month that were better designed and engineered.