HI,

Just to say, really .. if I had invested 1,000 CHF 3 years ago when the Apple stock price was $4 .. it would be worth $53,000 today.

Trading at 214 right now, could it even go to $600 like google? Is Google going to TAKEN OVER by Apple at some point?

This is a massive industry - cloud computing etc.

I'm not a techie but I know a good stock when I see it. I just made 78% on my Apple investment

Interested in opinions about Apple stock ...

M

I should have bought apple, but I love to hate apple and don't buy any of their products and not even their shares!

To be fair to them, they have focus, good products and execute well. They really showed what they could do with the iphone.

i don't enough about apple though. how much is their hubris and skill at execution down to Jobs (who will be gone at some point)?

I'm interested in seeing how they do with the iTablet, which like the iphone is technically not a difficult thing to produce, but i think that market is more hostile than the phone market.

I bought apple a few months back at $107 and sold at $130. Now at $210.
sigh

Pretty much all of it I think, I can't help thnking that when Jobs goes, his vision of what computing should be will go with him. Apple will probably just become a brand to stick on any product.

Considering what an awful and overpriced device the iphone 2G was I would never have invested in Apple!

That is because you fail to understand the genius of apple, many people may think their products are overpriced and rubbish, but they consistently deliver what people want, and that isn't overcomplicated cheap junk.

I think apple are great for people who just want to turn things on and for them to work, but for techie type people (eg me) they are a bit of a nightmare. To get the most out of them you also need apple everything eg mac, iphone, ipod, itunes, firewire video cam, apple monitor etc etc and if you don't then at some point your going to have problems.

They are also one of the few companies that actually spend a little time and effort on there front ends, after all these years I don't understand why other companies haven't twigged on???


Oh and as for the stock, as soon as jobs has another health scare it'll go through the floor, Jobs is apple, without him they are screwed.

The other key figure besides Jobs is Jonathan Ives. Even if Jobs goes that means there will be some design, and hence company, direction . . . it is, after all, a design led firm.

I read a review comparing the iPhone with the new Google one; and well the Google one won hands down on technology; Appreciate that these sort of reviews a bit like statistics; you know you can focus on the winning aspect of something; but this did seem to be a reasonable comparison.

Anyway what has got to do with the stock price, well I think google will be a real tough competitor to beat! which will affect the stock price.

Also read an article suggesting lots of "mom & pap" investors are returning to the stock markets in the last couple of months, driving the prices up. Experts are divided as to if this is a good sign or not; could be the start of another bubble like we saw in 2000.

You can say practically much the same about any innovation-driven company. Innovation is driven by individuals and not by processes or buzzwords.

But although Jobs may have his health problems, I don't think he's finished just yet.

Google had the advantage of letting the iPhone take the risk on a new interface design. All new phones are the way they are now because of the iPhone. I think apple will continue to dominate their section of the phone market for a while yet, simply because they were first with the right product.

Back to the stock topic. Anyone has any opinion on the GOOGLE and APPLE price trends? Google is quite expensive now.

Google price dropped after the new phone released... however many tech people think that GOOGLE will dominate the future tech world...I dont understand much their reasonings but seems Google has the right concept on future internet usage etc. Any one can explain bit here?

Please keep to the financial topic, folks. This thread is not the place to discuss the relative merits of tech products (without reference to stock prices).

The thread will be closed if it wanders off topic again.

Thanks to those who have tried to bring it back on topic.

Three years ago means 2006 by my calculations... AAPL stock hovered between 50 and 87 usd, making chf 1000 bought at the midpoint worth usd 3000 today, not usd 53000.

apple hasnt been at usd 4 since 1997.

Several analysts have recently noted that the company didnt spiral into destruction during Jobs potentially permanent(!) absence last year and Phil Schillers workmanlike if boring stewardship. This augurs well for those only devoted to their portfolio valuation.

Personally I agree with this view that if Jobs ever went, it would not mean that the company could no longer be successful given most peoples perceptions of success, by which I mean the share price might wobble quite a bit but over the long term rise or double or triple.

However I do believe it would be a deep tragedy for those of us who believe Jobs not just to be an inspired visionary but one of the if not the most singularly impressive CEOs in the world today, capable of eschewing focus group babble, boardroom myopia, and a rather dim if not neanderthal-like view of what customers want that seems to prevail at a lot of other companies I will not care to mention.

Like him and his company or not, that is a major reason why so much talk of him is inextricably linked to the share price of apple. How many other tech CEOs can we each name? Im betting not that many on average. Its an irony really that Apple once fired Jobs and sent him off into the wilderness for many years... even more ironic that Jobs hired the guy to help him run the company, and he soon after turned the board against Jobs and had him dismissed. Fairly hard to imagine that happening now!

I seem to recall the stock bottoming out at 14 in the late 90's Since then it has split 2 or 3 times and is up to 200?

One the rich Saudis bought 110 Million worth of the stock when it was near 14.

Job is a key to apple's success and especially when it comes to pushing something new into market, but the company has a solid design ethic and ability to execute without him.

i was kicking myself for not buying google, but i really didn't like their 'reduced rights' shares.

it seems that to succeed in the tech industry you need hubris. apple, google, MS - they have it in spades.

Recently I went through a pricing exercise for Apple and Google, based on the last 10 years for Apple, and less than that for Google as they only IPOed in 2004 (I think it was)

From that exercise Apple are slightly overpriced now, whereas Google is at less than half its value.

Google might start to get into more and more antitrust problems, and this can hurt investor confidence, but also might impede their growth. They already have something like 70% of the online ad morket. Pushing things like Android seems to me to be an attempt to increase the number of eyeballs looking at their ads, but also maybe to expand the market of online ads itself. But it seems to me that they may be starting to saturate in terms of share.

On the other hand, if ad spending increases, then their income should increase in proportion to this even if they don't expand their market share.

legal problems aside, google have the clout to take over many areas. but i'm surprised by how half-hearted their efforts are. e.g. orkut, their wikipedia clone, google base.

apart from their search/advertising products and gmail - have they really produced anything good?

i think a big thing for them will be location based advertising tied into google maps and available on smartphones.

Thanks. May i ask how did you do your pricing exercise?

And by any chance, do you know this stock: Iridium? just IPOed months ago in US.

My last question is whats the outlook of telcom stock?