Apple's Market Capitalization Sets First New Record High in Two Years at Over $660 Billion

[marklemac]

My brother and I tried to get our parents to buy up a bunch of Apple stock in the mid-90s, as well. They didn't. My dad was worried Apple would die. He would have been able to stop working by now if he had done that.

I didn't buy enough, hindsight is such a bitch. Wish I took out a huge loan and bought more.

I bumped into an old friend earlier this year and he purchased £40k of stock when it was around £20 per share. He sold the stock to buy a new kitchen at the end of the 90's. He said if he kept them and sold them at last years high then he would have cashed in £8 million...........

 

[patrickfish]

Hindsight

I really wish I had some apple stock. Should have bought it back in the 90s

Hindsight is wonderful, isn't it?

Regret isn't.

Unless you have a crystal ball or time machine and saw the future and did not act on what you knew, then there should be no regrets.

No one knew where Apple would be today.

Anything could happen. That is what life is about. What if something had happened to Steve Jobs earlier than it had? What if Ivie had left Apple? What if Apple had a fail in confidence on the iPhone? What if the iPod had failed?

What if? What if? What if?

Apple was so close to failure and shutdown back in the day, that Steve Jobs knew it COULD have happened. That's what the stock options scandal was all about.

Anyway, for peace of mind, you may wish to read this book by John Bogle:

http://www.amazon.com/Little-Book-Common-Sense-Investing/dp/0470102101

Index funds beat professional stock (managed fund) people 80% of the time.

I feel that Apple stock has been high risk up until recently. Steve Jobs was truly very key to its early success. He had the crazy passion and vision. Apple's success for the very most part is because of one person.

Would you bet your money on one person? What if back in 2001 he'd eaten a bad piece of raw fish at a sushi restaurant?

Most people should keep their money in broad-based low-cost index funds. Maybe have a little play money for stocks, but the index funds will beat most people guessing most of the time.

Peace

 

[patrickfish]

Spreading the risk

Apple is far less riskier investment than before. There are far more people in the product decision process. Rather than Jobs making a lot of decisions, you have committee now. Of course, that's a problem, too. More mediocre is likely from Apple than innovation.

I have had two reactions to buying individual stocks, when I bought them:
1. If the stock did well, I was like, well, that was a smart buy. I knew it was going to go up. I will buy more and buy other individual stocks.
2. If the stock didn't well, I would say, well, I knew I should not have bought that, I should have bought XX stock.

We can rationalize all day about our decisions.

Also, stock prices for a company are affected by sentiment and not facts. They are affected by the greater stock market.

Apple is doing great, but so is the S&P 500!

At the end of the day, you have to ask yourself: would you rather invest in ONE company with $100,000 and roll the dice, or would you rather invest $1,000 in 100 companies?

It's up to you to take the risk. That's all it is.

More risk, more reward. But you can lose big.

How about those people who bought in that sapphire plant in AZ? Some people thought it was a solid win for their retirement and they lost their shorts.

 

[IJ Reilly]

The market capitalization is the value of the company, so it could be considered a good indicator of success.

So it is often said, but it isn't so much of an indicator when you break it down. A company can have a huge market cap without even making a profit (I'm talking to you AMZN). So in that case investors are betting that the company will, some day, become highly profitable. In the meantime, is an unprofitable company with a big/growing market cap a successful company? That question is debatable, at least.

 

[dukeblue219]

As the article points out (obliquely), market cap really doesn't mean a whole lot, since it's a function of not only stock price but the number of shares in the float. Good for bragging rights but not a lot else.

You have that backwards.

Share price alone is practically meaningless since it just reflects how much one slice of a pie costs and doesn't tell you anything about the size of that one slice. Apple could tomorrow split 2:1 and there'd be twice as many shares at half the cost each, but it wouldn't tell you anything about the size of the company.

Market cap is share price * number of shares... it's the value of the whole pie. It absolutely does matter. It's the value of the company as determined by the market at any given moment (not to say that you could actually BUY all the shares at once).

 

[brewser]

AAPL is easily the most profitable stock I have ever owned. I'd be even better off if I had just held on to every share, but I didn't know then what I know now, and AAPL's success made it the largest part of my portfolio. That makes me nervous. So I have sold off and taken profits in the past (and bought back on the dips, occasionally). And I will continue to do that.

I think a lot of us have done the same thing. I've bought and sold over the last 5 years. I really don't have as much as I used to but I've taken profits and still have most of my initial investment. It's not a huge amount like some investors but I was able to take the profits and buy my kids new MacBooks and my son his first car. All from Apple share profits.

 

[IJ Reilly]

You have that backwards.

Share price alone is practically meaningless since it just reflects how much one slice of a pie costs and doesn't tell you anything about the size of that one slice. Apple could tomorrow split 2:1 and there'd be twice as many shares at half the cost each, but it wouldn't tell you anything about the size of the company.

Market cap is share price * number of shares... it's the value of the whole pie. It absolutely does matter. It's the value of the company as determined by the market at any given moment (not to say that you could actually BUY all the shares at once).

This question was already addressed, here:

How? Why?

I'm not arguing that stock price is a measure of success, either.

And here:

So it is often said, but it isn't so much of an indicator when you break it down. A company can have a huge market cap without even making a profit (I'm talking to you AMZN). So in that case investors are betting that the company will, some day, become highly profitable. In the meantime, is an unprofitable company with a big/growing market cap a successful company? That question is debatable, at least.

 

[MacSince1990]

Those shares I bought at $218 are looking better every day...

Cool story. The rest of us bought them at $12 in '98 when Apple users were small, tight-knit bunch.

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4.16 more billions and people will start saying Apple is evil because 666!

Yeah that's um.... not interesting.

The original Apple computer cost $666.

 

[AlecZ]

So it is often said, but it isn't so much of an indicator when you break it down. A company can have a huge market cap without even making a profit (I'm talking to you AMZN). So in that case investors are betting that the company will, some day, become highly profitable. In the meantime, is an unprofitable company with a big/growing market cap a successful company? That question is debatable, at least.

Personally, I would measure company success based on value rather than profits, but it is debatable. The company value indicates how optimistic the market is about it. Even if a valuable company has a high or negative P/E ratio, it means that there are things besides profit the company has that are seen as valuable because they could be used for profit later. There are also profitable companies that are seen as dead ends and aren't so valuable.

Besides, the shareholders of the company will have assets based solely on the company's value, so that's what they care about.

 

[MacSince1990]

I remember someone on these forums saying less than a year ago "at this rate, Google will overtake Apple in less than a year."

I remember laughing and telling them there was just no way. Wish I could remember who said it... within a month Apple took off and Google plunged from its high of over $1200 ($600 adjusted for split)

 

[Digimethods]

Apple Is Good

Its a wonderful news ,Apple will be first place all the times.

Thanks,
Digimethods.