Ones with zero debt, will survive.

I am not sure if you can add up the gains like that and claim 37%.
Don't you instead have to average the percent gains?
So, it's more like 18.5%.

As for stocks, it is looking more like casinos these days.
Movements in stock prices and indexes are now swayed by the fed statements or their interpretations and by how Italians voted in the last election, not necessarily by how well individual companies do.

if you had 687 apple shares, they would be worth 295k.
had you exchanged them for goog shares, they would be worth 434k

percentages depend on what you want to compare to what.

This is in no way new, ignore the noise, a great company is still a great company.

I always take theoretical trades with a pinch of salt, those deals may or may not have occurred at the prices quoted, had they actually executed.

I still don't see how you can come up with 37% gain.
You are assuming that you had 687 Apple shares, sold them before the drop, used the fund to buy Google... then sell Google and buy Apple shares today.
Doing so, you'll end up with 37% more Apple stocks than what you started with (?)
However, this is still not 37% gain of $$ in your account.

Sorry, I didn't work out the math precisely. Is this right?

i took an easier example where you started with the aapl shares.

let's say you have nothing (and ignore margin costs etc.)

you sell short aapl and use the funds to buy goog shares. then you sell goog, and use the funds to close the short. then you have an infinite gain as you started with zero. so you can get any gain you want really so i leave it as an exercise to you as to how much the 'cost' needs to be to get a precise 37% gain. i just added the two together.

You're all amateurs.

You should buy UK bank shares.

I bought some and in less than a week had made 250 UKP! I sold them and kept the profit.

Then I bought some more after they came back down in price again and currently they're worth 500 UKP less than I paid for them.

So, just do the first half of what I did and skip the second half. Easy.

incidentally, aapl now hovering around the $425 mark.

also saw an article today on aapl, goog, msft etc.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/1243...orth-the-price

Most would agree that Apple is a great company. A great company selling great products.

But this is nothing to do with investment decisions.

The question is value, not 'greatness'. Apple might be great, but if their current shares were $1K apiece, that would be a very unwise purchase for a new investor.

Even at about $422, where they are right at this moment, that doesn't seem like good value -- but people can argue about that. Given my investment personality and objectives, not to mention Apple's immediate commercial position, that isn't an investment I'd comfortably make.

You seem to invest too much sentiment in your portfolio. Remember that old axiom: "Don't fall in love with your stocks". If you've made a multi-hundred / thousand percent profit in Apple, please get out now. You can always buy back in once they plateau if they still seem like better value than anything else.

timely article:

http://nihoncassandra.blogspot.ch/20...edge-test.html

while there may be reasons to be bearish on stocks. it really hasn't paid off in the last few years...

EDIT: google slowed. good time for me to chicken out. like google stock but really don't like equities right now.

I suspect you would have been negative about Apple when the price was below $10, on the verge of bankruptcy, a very unwise purchase for a new investor.

Wish I could buy Aldi and Lidl shares.

Why? there profit margin is going to be rather small by any standards. I prefer profit margin over volume, which I am having trouble explaining to a company who wants me to work more days for a lower daily rate. I don't see any reason to do so as the more money I earn my tax rate increases, so the daily rate reduces even if it stays the same. I need to increase the daily rate not reduce it ........ Supply & demand!

i guess with low margin, you have low price and (hopefully) stable business i.e. less risk.

with high margin you pay a high price. plus risk that you go from high margin to low or lower margin (which is what i think is happening to apple right now).

though for those who like apple, the recent drop represents a buying opportunity. will be interesting to see how the price develops between the release of the galaxy s4 and the iphone successor announcement.

More likely to favour samsung as Apple has had is sweet period unless they can produce more then 1 product a year they will become a has been

that's what i mean. the period between the s4 release and the next apple product release could be the sweet spot for buyers (assuming apple doesn't tank completely).

as an android user, so can't really judge if/when people might want to switch from iphone/ipad to competing models. but i do see competitors closing the gap and some high profile apple fanboys switching.

You can suspect, I can suspect.... no idea what I would have thought then. The greatest weapon available to people who like investment chatter is hindsight. We could draw up a list of the most profitable stocks of all time and, with enough research, pinpoint times when they will have seemed like poor investments.

Fact is, for every Apple that rewards early investors there are a hundred that will do the opposite. We tend not to be so vocal about those.

But I say again, that if you are a genuinely insightful and bold investor who knows just a bit more than the market does, and has the Midas touch, then fair play to you. Milk your talent/good fortune, and well done. But most people need greater certainty, which they are willing to trade in for smaller, slower profits. This is why you were wrong to say "avoid trackers" as if this is good advice for everyone.

As I said at the outset, nothing wrong with getting rich slowly.