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Apple Stock Smashes Previous All-Time High For Second Month Running
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Buy how does that view square with the fact that 45% of adult Americans pay NO federal income tax? My view is that social and economic strains are increasing - but the core of that issue is the increasing entitlement society that has developed.
While I get hat point (seriously, in business, when producing / working, it's all about efficiency and getting done fastest possible).
Lets say that yes, Apple's efficiencies do make it competitive.
Imagine what would happen if Apple threw efficiencies AND the best hardware together? Apple would crush. not just be competitive. But crush.
But instead they're catering to the consumer and willing to sacrifice performance for other things that should be less important to someone aiming for compute power as their #1 need.
Just imagine a modern, desktop Mac Pro in a more traditional form factor that allows for the most modern and highest end hardware available without sacrificing for the look of the case.
now imagine it with all those inefficiencies Apple has.
yes. I'd be buying one. that would be worth the $500 premium over the last model and the competition.
but just being "competitive" while charging $500 more, with lesser hardware, while relying on those efficiencies to keep you competitive is not a position i want to be in. All it takes at that point is one disastrous software update or decision for those efficiency to be lost and the hardware to be a limitation. And anyone who HAS to use windows for things don't benefit from those efficiency, thus further making the Apple computer potentially provide less value for the dollar.
TLDR version:
it's one thing to be efficient. It's another thing entirely to use efficiency to make up for a deficiency somewhere else. IMHO, it's better to fix that deficiency than to just double down on the other efficiency and ignore the problem
Lets say that yes, Apple's efficiencies do make it competitive.
Imagine what would happen if Apple threw efficiencies AND the best hardware together? Apple would crush. not just be competitive. But crush.
But instead they're catering to the consumer and willing to sacrifice performance for other things that should be less important to someone aiming for compute power as their #1 need.
Just imagine a modern, desktop Mac Pro in a more traditional form factor that allows for the most modern and highest end hardware available without sacrificing for the look of the case.
now imagine it with all those inefficiencies Apple has.
yes. I'd be buying one. that would be worth the $500 premium over the last model and the competition.
but just being "competitive" while charging $500 more, with lesser hardware, while relying on those efficiencies to keep you competitive is not a position i want to be in. All it takes at that point is one disastrous software update or decision for those efficiency to be lost and the hardware to be a limitation. And anyone who HAS to use windows for things don't benefit from those efficiency, thus further making the Apple computer potentially provide less value for the dollar.
TLDR version:
it's one thing to be efficient. It's another thing entirely to use efficiency to make up for a deficiency somewhere else. IMHO, it's better to fix that deficiency than to just double down on the other efficiency and ignore the problem
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The benchmarks I posted above show it is faster. In addition you fail to consider that that test is also not an apples to apples comparison because the programs doing the work are fundamentally different . When benchmarks are done similar programs are used. Compare using cinebench,geek bench, trex benchmarks, 3D Mark tests. These are valid points of comparison. You cant compare Safari on macOS and Edge on Windows and say Mac is faster
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This is yet another "what if" post. Oculus founder said it the best when he stated that Oculus will support Macs when Apple starts making good computers. The hardware is grossly overpriced for what it is (Heck the AMD 7970 in the Mac Pro is just a year away from being discontinued by AMD which means no more drivers for it) and no amount of software efficiency will make a Radeon Pro 755 as fast as an GTX 970M.
As far as the Mac Pro goes, it will be an eternity before Apple ever gets around to updating it (if it ever does) considering its now been 4 years since it was last updated and the funny thing is my upcoming i7 6950 + GTX 1080 Ti and NvME SSD (Work in progress) PC will mop the floor with all other Mac Pros to come and if I wanted to I can also develop a Hackingtosh running OSX which will still destroy Apple's existing Macs. Lets face it, Apple is no longer interested in Macs. Its an iPhone company now. Heck even the iPad has been ignored. They keep making it faster and faster and the software is only mildly improved from 2013.
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Hey kid, I bought a Mac Plus in 1989 and purchased my first shares of Apple common stock in 1992.
It squares in several ways. First, one way to avoid paying federal income tax is to have little income to tax. Not a recommended strategy, but that's where a lot of Americans find themselves these days. (BTW, your 45% figure includes at lot of people who we would not expect to be paying much if any income taxes, including the retired.) Second, while many may not pay federal income tax, if they are paid wages they do pay FICA and Medicare, at 7.7%. Double that if they are self-employed. FICA is capped at $127,200 of wage income so it is a highly regressive tax. Further, if you can collect your income passively you are probably not paying more than the flat 15% capital gains rate, and maybe a lot less, if your passive income comes from tax-favored sources such as real estate investments. And to make it sweeter, you pay no FICA or Medicare.
So yes, the entitlement society we've developed is one that entitles the wealthy and the investor class. Tax policy over the last 35 years has created the largest wealth gap in the industrialized world, and one of the least economically mobile populations (you could look this up). This is exactly what regressive tax policy is designed to do, so it's been a huge success from that standpoint, and an even greater one when you consider how many people who are being totally shafted by it don't understand its main purpose.
We need to decide if we believe increasing wealth concentration and poor economic mobility are good or bad things for the country, and allow our tax policy to follow from that belief. I know where I stand. I think it stinks rotton.
While I don't disagree that Apple's customers are happy, I think you are misunderstanding causation and correlation here.
Customer satisfaction is based on polling done of thsoe who have purchased. Apple's market for many of their products are actually small. For example, Apple's computer roughly makes up less than 10% of the worlds actual computer usage. This presents a much smaller market in which to poll. Apple also leads the world in brand recognition and have frequently showcased in one of the highest of brand loyalty.
What this evidences is that those who are using APple products tend to be in love with them, but those who don't like Apple products, don't tend to even purchase Apple products. Thus, they aren't in the polls for how much you love your apple product
This is completely different than the rest of the market, (Android or WIndows for example), where with overwhelming market size, many of these products are used regardless if they're liked or not, because there's not really elsewhere to go. Thus, lowering their consumer ratings.
that doesn't mean apple has "done it right", as you COULD make the argument, if Apple "did it right", they would be the leading platform in everything they score favourably on in polling. EG: If Apple computers are really 95% loved, than why is only 10% of the world using them (computers as an example)?
What goes up must come down. Its just that Apple stock has been up for a very nice long run. The wise investor doesn't put all their eggs in the Apple basket so that when it does go down, any losses can be minimized.
The stock market has had an eight year run in positive territory. Its overdue for a correction. When that happens and how big a correction it will be is anybody's guess.
The fact remains that with its current product line up, Apple stock is at an all time high RIGHT NOW.
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In my humble opinion, the bottom line is that Apple is CURRENTLY the number one publicly held company on the planet in terms of market capitalization ($735 billion); its stock is at an all time high and it finished first for the 13th year in a row in customer satisfaction among its competitors in the computer industry. As an Apple product consumer and an Apple stockholder, I am happy with those results. Should that situation change significantly, I can always switch to other companies' products and sell my APPL stock.
Just for the record, AAPL reached its peak market cap in April 2015 ($764B). The current market cap is $734B. So it will reach its real "all time high" at $145.50
I'm sure the "rest of us" buying more than $159 priced headphones will make up a small fraction compared to AirPod sales after the AirPods are readily available for walk in purchase. The headphone industry is going to suffer significantly after smartphones all drop the analog port as well. There are some great headphone manufacturers out there, but they are going to have to get their sound quality to come through on bluetooth or else they will have to live with much reduced sale volume.
And Apple is not just dominating the smartwatch market, it is doing very well in the entire watch market. And they have aggressively priced their low end watches leaving far less room for other manufacturers to compete on price. It is a different strategy than what they used for the iPhone. There may be no "non-Apple" smartwatch market in very short order.
as an investor that's a smart position to take.
my "beef" is with the "fanboys" who will stick by a business decision no matter what, because it is "Apple". instead of looking at it realistically. Which you sound fine with doing.
Brand loyalty isn't a bad thing. Blind brand loyalty borders on religious Zeal (this goes for any fanboy, Except for Toronto Maple Leaf fanboys... We're fine... there's always next year)
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The survey isn't about capabilities, it's about satisfaction. So while at the end of the day, windows wins the numbers game, it doesn't win in satisfaction. I agree a Mac is "nicer" to user than windows, with some things being annoying as well.
And I'll comment on the second part, even though it wasn't my post. I'm not sure why there are any labels at all to those who agree with apples business decisions. Agreeing with a corporate decision does not make you a "fanboy" any more than disagreeing makes you a "basher". Only in the internet does the term "blind brand loyalty" get thrown about. In "real life", people seem to evaluate their options with a good experience pushing toward a repeat purchase.
Just for the record I said that Apple was currently the number one publicly traded company in terms of market capitalization, not that it was at an all time high market capitalization. What's 30 billion among friends!
If AAPL hits $150, I'm out for the first time since 1998!
Well you did say that the stock was "at its all time high." It can be argued that it isn't, in the sense that the total value of the stock is still less than it was two years ago, when a half a billion more shares were in circulation.
I don't plan my exits. I've been unwinding my position for years, and sell when I have good reasons of my own.
The original context of this discussion was that there was a post lamenting Apple stock being at an all time high when their customer satisfaction was falling. I pointed out that on the most widely recognized survey of customer satisfaction Apple remained at number one for year 13. The top five were Apple, Samsung, and Amazon; then Acer, ASUS, Dell (all tied) and HP but the differences in scores between those companies are NOT statistically significant. The survey assesses the company as a whole, the brand name, not individual products.
Apple appears to be doing fine in customer satisfaction and that is reflected in its stock being at an all time high, among many other factors that account for that fact.
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Respectfully, I just don't think you understand the market for Apple in 2017. What is a poor choice to you personally, is not necessarily so for others. The whole point of Apple was to make a computer for the everyman. While early PCs were cumbersome code-machines dominated by programming geeks, it was Apple who created a graphical, friendly, easy to use computer for the masses. A computer for the writer, the artist, the musician, and so on. None of these folks need to get into the backend libraries of the OS. We frankly prefer a more elegant and efficient OS that doesn't bog us down in useless techno-babble. However, if we really want to get to it, making it easily accessible with a few keystrokes in menus seems pretty easy but gets out of the way of the everyman.
Like, why do you really need it to be so easy to access the Library folder? What in the workflows of your profession have you in there often enough that you can't just click "Go to Folder" if you really needed to get in there?
Edit: Reading your signature line that you've been using Apple since 1987 I guess I understand where you're coming from. I think you need to recognize that the company has changed drastically over that time. Modern Apple users actually do care about getting the "computer" stuff out of the way so we can get to work in the Apps we use. We care about new watch bands. It's a different world than the garages of the early-PC-era 80s. As Dylan said "Your old road is rapidly agin’. Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand, for the times they are a-changin’"
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Apple's brand stands for high end products which is why it gets these high satisfaction rates. If you release a phone costing 1K it's obvious it's going to have the very best tech inside it customer satisfaction will go through the roof. Samsung does not only sell the S7 Edge and has a ton of low end phones. And so do other companies which is why their brand will never be as valuable as Apple as they don't have the power to charge any price and get away with it. The HTC U ultra is a fine example
First of all the Android tablet market is non existent so kudos to Apple for trumping an non existent competition . I am an Android fan and even if I wanted to there isn't a single competitive Android tablet out there that competes with either the Surface or iPad. Samsung has the Tab S2 series but again they are mid range range tablets and Samsung doesn't care about them because my Tab 23 is still stuck on December 2016 security update with no chance of Nougat. Sony has lost interest after the Z3 Tablet .
Microsoft and Apple are the only 2 competent tablet companies around so obviously they are at the top.
And there is no way I am believing the iPad has a better design than the Surface which is what the report implies. The iPad is using the same design since it was launched whereas Microsoft was the one who tried to innovate with the kickstand and keyboard approach and even now I have seen people owing both claiming the Surface keyboard is better to type on .
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this is all finance maneuvering
the only product Apple has left is the iPhone and competitors will very soon eclipse Apple with better features at a lower price.
iApple will be the soon the new blackberry/nokia/sony
they will go down suddenly from the very top to the very bottom (not slowly)
the only product Apple has left is the iPhone and competitors will very soon eclipse Apple with better features at a lower price.
iApple will be the soon the new blackberry/nokia/sony
they will go down suddenly from the very top to the very bottom (not slowly)
People have been saying these types of things for years now, since the iPod days, and yet here we are.
They've also been saying it more emphatically since cook took office, and yet here we are today.
However if it happened to bb to be fair it could happen to Lehman bros, GM, enron....