I have about 20k just sitting in a money market account earning .1% and was thinking it would be a much better short term investment if I bought 30 shares of Apple stock. I threw it into a money market account because I will need access to it within a year or so (fall of 2013).

My question is: Should I purchase the stock at approximately $650 a share intending to sell it within the year?

I've never invested before and I'm not considering this an "investment" in relative terms for long-term growth. I assume Apple is a company that is nearly certain to grow and the one year stock holding is more of super high yield savings account in this instance.

apple may grow its revenues and earning, but the stock may still fall at the same time. what you are doing is extremely risky compared to a savings account, in fact they arent even in the same ballpark.

I undertand risk is involved but with iPhone 5, a mini iPad and potentially iTv or apple cable boxes being produced within the year, is it likely the stock will lose value?

it is absolutely more likely than not that the stock will raise in value

OP the problem is that AAPL has gone up 400% in the last 4 years , this stock can drop 100 points and still maintain its current uptrend. stay away from aapl if all you have is one year to hold it. i would personally be short it, but that is a whole other animal.

That's my impression. I wouldn't dream of attempting this plan with any other stock but with such potential for growth and little potential for catastrophic loss, the risk is outweighed by the potential for earning.

I don't have any expectations in value other than it will considerably outperform all other forms of short-term investments like CDs, money market, and high yield savings.

other poeple are aware of the iphone 5, it is priced in already

yeah this seems like something that has no potential to completely blow up in your face.

seriously though, educate yourself and make an informed decision rather than just blindly stockpicking based on "what you feel is non-risky" like millions of retail investors.

a lot of you guys wouldnt eat if it wasnt for the millions of retail investors. tapping the glass is acceptable when it comes to stocks it seems.

usually apple stock *drops* with big product announcements

Don't do it. There are way too many reasons it is wrong, but what always amazes me is that people are willing to put up big money into companies where they really don't have the information needed.

Even though APPLE is now the largest market cap company in history, I would bet that you cannot tell me within 20 percent what their total revenues have been for the previous 12 months (you might not get within 70 percent. My guess is that you have NO CLUE off the top of your head). I would almost bet that you cannot name the CEO immediately, but if you can, I would certainly bet that you can't name another high level employee.

Do you know how many shares all of the insiders own? I can pretty much guarantee that you do not. I can name about 10 more areas where it would be almost certain that you do not have the information.

Stocks go down for lots of reasons. I would say that if you put this 20K on APPLE right now that there is a 50 percent chance that you will have 16K or less at some point in the next 12 months. Life is not so easy that things are guaranteed to go up, especially things that have already gone up.

Warren Buffett has 20 billion in Treasuries. He would never put one billion in APPLE for any reason, and he certainly knows that if he put up one billion for one year that it would have his billion at substantial risk.

Your insights do not equal his. Stay in cash.

yes good philosophy.

i'm sure this guys 20k is going to have a huge impact on your absolutely fool-proof equity stock-picking methodology. what on earth gives you the impression that you aren't one of ones hearing the tapping?

ohhh, I am , biggest sucker out there.. if you read above i basically stated the same as you.

no i wouldn't be able to off the top of my head but I could research it.

This thread isn't about how sound the strategy is in relation to long-term investing. It's main purpose was to weigh the risk/reward ratio to potential gains and losses compared to steady short-term conventional growth investments.

if risk/reward is what you are after , aapl stock is about the worst you can pick for that scenario.

1. Tim Cook. What the hell does it matter how many top-level employees I can name when determining whether to buy it's stock in this particular situation?

2. I'm not certain why I would need to know how many shares of stock insiders own in order to consider buying the stock in this situation.

3. I would like to know how you calculated the 50% chance that the stock price will depreciate nearly or over 20% for the entire fiscal year? Not one analyst in the world predicts this.

So the risk is much higher than potential reward? Apple is more likely to lose value over the 2013 fiscal year as opposed to gain?

absolutely, at its current valuation everything has to go perfect just to justify its share price , any slip up, and the ratios go down the drain and this stock could go down 30% and still be on a long term uptrend.

If the market were to go down , this will also go down and at a higher pace . f this stock was your big idea to get in the market. keep it in your mm account.

was also thinking of doing this. any other thoughts on it? unless everything goes right and they come up with more great ideas, it's not a good buy?

the more people think along the lines of you and the OP, the better a short it becomes.

That isn't what he said.

holy jesus what is going on in this thread

Name one analyst on planet earth off the top of your head. I bet you can't, yet all of a sudden these "analysts" mean something to you. You probably didn't know that the average swing for a large cap stock in a given year is 100 percent. In other words, the low might be 30 and the high 60. For small caps it is even worse, but even the biggest companies on earth have bigger swings than you could imagine. You can learn this by going to Yahoo right now and typing in the first 100 companies you can dream up. Check out the 52 week highs and lows.

If you bought shares in any large cap company right now, it is over 90 percent that you are going to be down at least 10 percent during the next year at some point. Why should a stock go up, just because you bought it?

99.99 percent of all stocks people buy go down at some point. That has to be the case, as nobody can really buy at the low tick. So, every single time you buy, you can expect to be down at some point, and the math says that you can expect to be down substantially much of the time.

You simple have no idea what you are doing. You could get lucky and not lose, and that would be the worst thing that could happen to you, as sooner or later you would press your luck at the wrong time and do real damage to your life.

Do whatever you want. Your reasoning is not sound.

So you wouldn't invest 20k in apple?