Apple has a loyal customer base, many of whom have purchased stock and will hold it. The company has a firm hold on part of the market and investors value the company, so buying Apple stock is a safe bet (should there be such a thing today).
Companies who have a core product, develop it and add peripheral products will prosper. I would worry that Google and Yahoo are extending themselves, rather like the banks who went into insurance and then had to sell (at a loss) to get out.
Jobs is important to Apple but not indispensible. He has already attracted a lt of talent that will serve the company well in the long term.

I have my doubts about Yahoo, but Google does seem to know what it's doing. They're not Apple, but they do have a sound reputation and are sufficiently flexible and dynamic to expand into new sectors. Anyway, the market is big enough for several big guys and with continued growth, rising sales need not necessarily be at the expense of the competitors. I don't really think this is primarily about Google vs. Apple even if some pundits like to paint it that way.

but isn't iridium ancient. i thought the company went into bankruptcy (or came close) and then re-emerged to be profitable once it's debts had been wiped out. or maybe i'm confusing it with another satellite company?

I dont thinkyou are confusing ... it is THE one.
http://siliconinvestor.advfn.com/rea...msgid=25999900

The IPO price was at 10, now today price is below 8. My friend has open position and now she doesnt know what to do. if she should take the loss and walk away or should rather hold ...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=irdm%20us

Thanks!

frankly, i'd sell. replacing satellites is a capital intensive business and i wouldn't like to be raising the capital in 2014 when the world is, at best, emerging from the biggest financial collapse of all time.

i don't see how they could even pretend to be profitable on commercial applications alone e.g. shipping, aviation. but the wildcard may be military uses and whether it might be kept alive by the US govt - but I suspect even their budgets will be squeezed in the next few years.

Exactly, they nearly went twice for bankruptcy! And your reasoning is very correct. I will tell my friend.
Thanks.

The pricing exercise looks at 1, 5 and 10 year for

net income growth rate
revenue growth rate
EPS growth rate
Return on investment
Return on assets
Return on equity

Most of these numbers are available for free at moneycentral.msn.com. As I don't subscribe to any data services I had to scrape the data off web pages myself.

You then take the averages of some of those numbers and use them to guesstimate the future share price in say 10 years. The obviouus assumption is they will keep up this average performance for the next 10 years. Then you discount that FSP to arrive at a price for today and compare it to the current share price.

I used a discount rate of 15% per year after calculating the FSP.

However, if you use a different discount rate than I, but apply the same discount rate to Apple and Googe, Google will still look relatively undervalued compared to Apple.

It was during this exercise that I noticed Google seems to have slowed down quite rapidly in the last few years in terms of growth rates.

Not the Iridium that went tits-up in 1999, then?
.

Yes, it is that one. thats why they did this IPO and tried to raise money.

As phil said,... their core biz seems not really profitable or doesn't have a bright outlook. neither for the other biz... ???

Breached $300

So much for "overpriced" (in January, at 200-something).

Hindsight fail

I can see it going to google levels.