Exactly. If you weren't born knowing how stocks work, then don't even bother trying to learn. They are not for you.
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Apple's Market Capitalization Sets First New Record High in Two Years at Over $660 Billion
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Exactly. If you weren't born knowing how stocks work, then don't even bother trying to learn. They are not for you.
Oh look, it's the classless guy who constantly wishes Carl Icahn would just die every time there's an article.
If you own any Apple stock you should be thanking Mr. Icahn for bringing more attention to Apple and pushing for enlarged buybacks/dividends (which Apple ended up doing).
You can only "buy low and sell high" if you know ahead of time when the lows and highs will occur. Trying to guess is a losing game; even the pros don't get it right often. To be successful, your investing strategy has to be based on more substantial factors than trying to outguess the markets.
I strongly suggest you read books on investing/finance. It's good you've made money so far but your post is just full of naivete.
Wow, harsh answer
At some point before someone became market savvy they were not. Everyone at one point knew nothing about equities before they did.
At some point before someone became market savvy they were not. Everyone at one point knew nothing about equities before they did.
High stock, great products and a new category product announced. Looks like Apple isn't doomed under Tim Cook 
I get what he was saying, and that wasn't it. You don't need to buy individual stocks to invest in the stock market. You don't have to buy any stocks at all to learn. The point is: learn before you invest, not the other way around. Starting with one stock and no knowledge is likely to result in a needlessly painful lesson.
Grrrrr
MR - please add someone to your team who understands general finance, accounting, M&A, etc. or at least someone who is proficient at Googling/fact checking before posting. Buyback programs almost always INCREASE share prices.
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/112013/impact-share-repurchases.asp
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/02/041702.asp
http://wiki.fool.com/Does_a_Stock_Buyback_Affect_the_Price%3F
MR - please add someone to your team who understands general finance, accounting, M&A, etc. or at least someone who is proficient at Googling/fact checking before posting. Buyback programs almost always INCREASE share prices.
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/112013/impact-share-repurchases.asp
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/02/041702.asp
http://wiki.fool.com/Does_a_Stock_Buyback_Affect_the_Price%3F
That's an insult. I didn't call you classless. But what I said about Carl Icahn stands. I do not have a beef with you, so no need to insult me.
Icahn brought attention to Apple stock, that's good. How he has done it though is less than moral.
I don't think the China ghost towns are happening at all. I travel to Shenzhen and it's been booming for the last 8 years. The only ghost towns are from people buying condo's just because they have nothing else to do with their money.
More Porsche's and Land Rovers and S-class's are sold in Shenzhen than California I would wager.
iPhone is a status symbol for a lot of people. It's also practically and essential of your life. iPhone is recession-proof - as demonstrated by post 2008. Ben Bernanke was actually a genius and saved us all from a lot of suffering - go figure eh?
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Forget the "markets" - buy value when you see it. Compare financials of any other company with AAPL. Wow. I don't know why people in my neighbourhood risk money on things they know nothing about like biotech drug companies, or oil or ridiculously overpriced restaurant stocks, when if you just compare some simple numbers, AAPL has been a great investment. This is the reason why I have become a bit vocal about it on MacRumours over the years - it's just so silly actually. Learn from your own past. You don't have to outguess the market, you can buy the biggest company in the world, with great dividends, and with growth that looks quite sustainable for the next several years at least. Go to an Apple store - any customers in there? I'm betting there are a lot of people looking around in the Apple Stores. That's a good sign. Simple stuff like that.
Forget the markets? Hmm. I don't see that as being great advice.
Value is a relative concept, at least in investment terms. A value stock is not really a good investment until others recognize it as such. Value investors, by definition, are trying to outguess the markets. They have to be very knowledgable, careful, and patient. Another way of trying to outguess the markets is by timing buying and selling. A bad idea.
"Buying what you know" is not a bad thought, but a novice investor is not going to know very much. Even veteran investors are prone to being herded into buying and selling, and that's a great way to lose money. A noob is going to shoot himself in the foot, then reload, being alternately greedy and scared when everybody is. After a few rounds of that, they will probably decide that equity investing is not for them.
Novices should probably steer clear of individual stocks entirely. The alternatives are many. They aren't as exciting but then they won't be as discouraging either.
Find and pick an online stock broker such as Fidelity, E-Trade, Ameritrade, Charles Schwab, etc. Set up an account with one of them, and fund the account by depositing money. Once your money is deposited, make an order to buy Apple stock.
This is all probably a bad idea if you don't know what you're doing.
Value is not a relative concept I don't think. Look at the balance sheet of a company and it tells you a lot of what you need to know.
The markets are not always correct and the whole world is often wrong about things and this is why you can find a bargain out there. When I say forget the markets, I mean that if you listen to BS about "technical analysis" or seasonal variations, or try to "time the market" you are just jumping on a bandwagon.
I would say that a better strategy would be to buy what you believe in and understand and spread out your purchases of investment stocks over time and keep your finger on the pulse of the company you have invested in. You can try both, and try to time the market and buy what you believe in - go for it I guess, just recognize what is important. Or learn what is important. I did.
I'm just saying buy what you believe in and what you know. If you don't know anything and know that, then yeah, wait a while, but start looking at the world differently. Instead of crying about high prices of iPads on a geek forum like we all are here doing, consider that the high price means more profit for this particular company. It's a start. That much should be understood.
Stocks are a lot like gambling. I know very little about the NFL, so I avoid betting on the sport, and I think it's good that I avoid that. If someone knows nothing about anything, then yeah, they should maybe not be betting on the stock market.
Forget diversification. "Am I diversified?" is what Cramer used to ask, and I would challenge that idea - I disagree with diversification very much.
If you don't know what you are investing in, you could be taking a risk you will regret. If you listen to your stockbroker, for example, or listen to some guy like me on a forum you might be taking a big risk. You have to believe in what you are doing on your own I think.
Just pick the right stock. If a "novice" does that, he will be OK. If he diversifies and follows the same old crap advice, he'll do as well as the DOW if he's lucky, and that's just a crapshoot gambling bet I'd say, (and is why I think diversification is silly).
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Hard to know where to start here, so I will go with diversification. This is extremely important to any investor. The reason is because it's essentially impossible to beat market benchmarks over time. Even the pros can't do it consistently. They can't predict on a regular basis which companies or even broad sectors will out-perform or under-perform. Can small investors manage it any better? They can convince themselves that they do, but mainly because they lack the proper reference points. They can say "I made money, I am a great investor," but they are probably not comparing their investing performance to how they might have invested instead.
Value is a relative concept, at least in investing terms. You can seek out companies you are convinced that the markets are undervaluing, and buy their stocks. So what if the markets never agree with you and the stock just sits there? Was the stock still undervalued? This is the problem with value investing. It presumes you know something that the broader market does not, but that they will find out eventually. And good luck with that.
Personally, I managed that trick once, with AAPL (bought in 1997). Of course I did ridiculously well, but yet I will not claim to be smarter than everybody else on that account. I was just really, really lucky. I am now unwinding my AAPL position over time and buying nothing but diversified ETFs. And they, for the record, are nothing like gambling.
Wait, don't you mean to swap "market cap" and "stock price" in that sentence? People often mistakenly measure a company's success by its share price alone, but the market cap matters.
The market capitalization is the value of the company, so it could be considered a good indicator of success.
Boy, nothing beats slave labor for boosting a stock price! Those Chinese servants come in handy, don't they.