Agree with everything straightaway said. Fundamentally this is still not an expensive stock. Personally I taking this tremendous run up over the last two weeks to trim some of my position however. AAPL was already my largest position but it has now grown to nearly 20% of my portfolio plus I have found parabolic run-ups in large caps to be good selling opportunities.

AAPL's valuation has got to make you laugh at this point, it doesnt even pay a dividend.

In a market where any cyclical that doesnt pay dividends is basically trash to see a 0% yielder rally 1000s of % like it aint no thang is just amazing.

Dumb money is buying right now, but to risky to short as this thing could easily push another multiple or two before she runs out of steam.

My guess is when I'm 50 talking about AAPL to 20 year olds they will be looking at me as the crazy old man talking out his ass about some company they have never heard of.

glad to hear you wouldn't touch it highpsiguy, now I know I'm on the right side

i hold 120 shares but have began selling off my long call options with huuugggee gains. sold march 490 calls today and also let go of jul 12 570 calls i bought at 5 a contract and sold at 17. this stock is ridiculous i am wondering when there will ever be an end.

LOL so funny all the pikers coming here claiming massive gains in AAPL, must be near the peaks.

A share of apple stock now costs as much as the original iPod.If you spent that money that day on Apple stock instead,it would be worth $27,556 today

You may be the on the right side for along while, hopefully you dont get left holding the bag at the end.

Sick 54 bagger in 10 years.

Under this logic, BRK's valuation must cause an explosion of laughter so intense, surgery may be required.

There is no need for a company to EVER pay a dividend - for non-institutional holders of stock, a buyback is much better in terms of taxation than the issuance of a dividend and is otherwise functionally the same thing.

My own take on apple:

Apple has peaked. They are pursuing the same walled-garden strategy that Microsoft followed in the 90's and in turn are gradually pissing off 3rd-party developers. I wrote about this a while back in the iPhone thread but my impression (as a software developer who has followed tech companies for 20 years) is that the iPhone will gradually do the same thing as the blackberry and Apple's other income sources will gradually diminish. I doubt it will be a fast decline, the the sort of general descent into mediocrity like Microsoft before them.

With a paperwhite screen, small pictures to represent program choices anda "mouse" (a small rolling box with a button on it)

Interesting day for the stock. Hit an all time high this morning and now down nearly $30 from that peak and down $10 on the day.

Not a ton of news as Chinese ban has been in the press for a few days. Only bit of news I can find is issue about cutting AAPL's weighting in the NASDAQ again.

$30 billion dollar valuation gap intraday, this thing is going to get the almighty smackdown soon.

Can you elaborate on MSFTs "walled garden" and how it upset 3rd party developers?

And how is Apple doing the same thing?

I only ask because I'd be nice to get a good idea how the development community views these companies and their ecosystems. I'm not very familiar with MSFT/AAPL and their relations with 3rd party devs.

If AAPL isn't on the right path in terms of supporting 3rd party developers...what would be an ideal path?

thanks highpsiguy, you just convinced me to buy more tomorrow

Its funny how people consider me a contrarian indicator, good luck fools.

The fact that there is a whole thread dedicated to AAPL and the fanboys and pikers are coming out of the wood works claiming to own $100k worth of this thing should be more then enough reason to stay away.

Anyways AAPL will either go up and I will be the greatest fool ever, or AAPL will go down and noone will acknowledge my call.

I should also mention I have never been bearish on AAPL until after it went over $500 per share, its not like I was claiming to short it at $300.

highpsiguy,

in your opinion, what would be a fair forward p/e for AAPL?

The E has likely peaked so who cares...

let me know what kind of wager you'd like to place on that

I think you should hold of your buying. There was a very strong reversal today. Too great a chance we either plunge down tomorrow or in the next few days like 30 bucks down or something like that. Of course we might not plunge but I think chances are too great that we will. I'm actually short since the middle of the day today and looking for at least another twenty dollar move down. Just another opinion. You do as you think is right.

thanks for your thorough and convincing analysis. i've changed my mind and i'm going short tomorrow!

Ok.

Congrats to anyone that bought them 2005 and still have them.

Overall Apples products are at least 20% to expensive and people pay that
at the moment....but what are apples earnings if they get only the " normal price " for there products.

I am old and like to buy value, i tried friends iphones and ipads.
For me its more a trendy toy for kids, i prefer an notebook over an pad and i need only a normal phone..so i might be not qualified.

they would make very little and their share price would plummet to a fraction of what it's currently trading at.

but that's all irrelevant because there's no close substitute for apple's products.

there's a reason gucci and prada stay in business despite the fact that h&m exists. and i'll give you a hint - it's not because they compete on price.

I am in germany so it might be differrent in the rest of the world.

Apples trendy image is there biggest enemy. I see at the moment many that use the iphone to want look cool and trendy and dont have the money for
trendy clothes a sports car or a visit in nice bars.

They use the iphone as compensation and in fact i see in our company the most iphones in the hand of our " flexworkers ".....ok 3 of them bought it used
from colleagues that use android now.

Its at least here that the brand moves from trendy to want be trendy.

And last days many Iphones make trouble with -25 C..seems they like warm weather