Apple earnings release on 5/2.. Expectations?

They had a 12% YoY decline last quarter and the stock rallied on god knows what, probably trump and the idea of a tax holiday. Apple is a dog, it's growth days are behind it and it's not even a tech co at this point, it's a phone company. If you buy a $750b co with negative growth I don't know what you expect really, I mean they can financially engineer share price forever at this point but growth is gone and doubtful to return if innovation entails changing screen sizes and adding new colors

Again look at Gild,F,GM,etc. the market multiple for companies with declining numbers is low single digits like 3-7x earnings, Apple is well above that. Gilead has a ton of cash too but the market only cares about growth, lol all you want. Apple is one of the most crowded long trades out there, you wanna hold it with declining numbers at $140+ go ahead but the easy money,50%, in the past 12 months has been made

again GILD is in the same situation, tons of cash, tons of cash flow, but 0 growth and look at the stock its been halved the last 24 months.

Apple has been an amazing trade for everyone over the last 15 years, but part of being a wise investor is understanding when a trade is beginning, when a trade is sustaining, and when a trade is over.

When a guy with no vision like warren buffett who is still buying railroads, things like dairy queen, etc says he doesn't buy tech when apple is $375 then takes a stake in apple at $850/share then ups his position by like 9x at $900+ per share split adjusted of course, thats when you should be running for the hills.

Warren Buffett may have been a great investor years ago with his old school value metrics, but in this new age world he missed every single big gainer of the last decade from google,amazon,salesforce,tesla,etc.

Just something to ponder, Apple is $750B, that means every $1 it moves, it adds $6B in market cap. There was a time, in 2016, like early may when it was $90 where the market valued apple cash as nothing special, thats still probably the case, but if you notice most of the big runup was post election, so it has more to do with a tax holiday that may or may not come, if it does, great for apple, if it doesn't, the -12% YoY growth is going to be a big catalyst for a move back down.

One thing is for sure, you wont get a double from here, thats adding another $750B in market cap, if I can't at least envision a path to a double in a name, Im not buying it.

Last qtr was YoY increase and this one is expected as well.

And just... wow on your previous post. Is BKY not continuing to grow in profitability or did I miss something?

For a guy that hates the trade so much you sure know a lot about them. I'm also guessing you aren't an iPhone guy?

There's the stock and there's the product. Product is still far and away better than anything else out there imo and to anyone that is not super tech savvy like boomers. It just works and is user friendly, oh and it just works for a long time.

I just bought a new $550 windows laptop and it's dog shite compared to my wife's 4 year old Mac. I wish I would of just paid double for the Mac.

Profit and growth is a long term issue when the product is marginal. I agree I don't see a long term major growth, but google is still crushing too. Apple seems fairly safe with their cash and expected iPhone 8 sales.

Im an iphone guy for sure and I love the company and its products, but as a stock its overvalued. Its good to know what you're discussing before you decide to go long or short. Im not short apple, they can financially engineer the shares forever, look up AZO, autozone, they've done nothing but buybacks for a long long time while sales declined and the shares are at all time highs. I would never short apple, but the growth story, which is what drives shares higher ie amazon and tesla and google continue to grow big time annually while apple is has nominal or negative growth.

If apple wants to get into payment processors vs visa or invest in electric cars, anything to bring on some growth, then it would a great buy for me. Currently though, tim cook seems content changing colors and adding bigger screens and its not a shocker that from 2015 to 2016 apple sales declined by $20B.

The thing is we know hardware costs eventually decline, apple is now a hardware company and their margins will erode. You can't keep charging $700+ for a phone when all new phones do basically the same shite for alot less in some cases. You and I love their products, and you and I will probably pay more it, but we're not the average person. With that said, Android is like 90% of the global phone market and apple is only 10% or so, they may be able to maintain their niche for a long time at high margins if the fan club keeps overpaying. You're 100% correct about macs, I have a macbook pro, and a 27" imac and they're the best computers ever to me, and I'd never switch but if somehow there was a $200-300 phone with similar functions, I'd drop my iphone in no time when it was time.

I think both sides of this argument are right to an extent.

I think this current version of Apple probably has hit it's peak and is on the decline, which is basically DBF's point.

The counter point is that there is really nothing that indicates Apple won't shift as a company and come up with another way to grow. They are about as financially healthy a company can be and have the ability to go into any avenue they want to. How this translates into us making money off of them is anyones guess.

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Those are not the investments of the future

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So he's a VALUE investor. He invest in value wherever it can be found. To say that value investing will be dead and then tout the tech companies of the future is the exact reason why VALUE investing will always be a thing because people always undervalue not sexy industries.

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but a great investor invests in the future, not the past

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This is unequivocally false. Great investmenting is buying undervalued companies, whether that's because you believe it's driven by future growth or just fundamentals and cash flow, it doesn't matter. He's been doing this for 50+ years. You don't think he's heard that line before. He knows when to exit a dying company.

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give me a guy like chamath palihapitiya who seemingly nails one grand slam after another these days over a guy like buffett at this point in history.

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When Chamath has been doing it for 50 years and economic cycles, economic collapses, rapid inflation, wars, and so on, we can start discussing his title as the greatest investor of all time.


ps. I wouldn't buy apple

Not to get off topic, but Buffett had some big gainers the last couple of years . He's also well into his 80s now so I doubt he's working as hard. I know Berkshire has other guys doing the lead work but I highl soubtbthey are nearly as risky as Buffett in his prime.

Isn't apple up 40%+ the last 6 months? It may only be up 5-10% the past year but I think most apple investors would be very happy with even 10% more growth in 2017. I don't think anyone is expecting a huge gain.

I think he brings up a good point, how is this stock being valued? If its on growth, that could be a hard sell.