On how far behind Apple is:

i went online to set a sell for my AAPL shares at 445 or so, figuring i would get out while i'm still in profit. apparently, i'd already decided that i would as the shares had already been sold at a lower price - overall a small loss after transaction costs. lesson learned - never invest in stock you don't believe in, you don't feel comfortable holding it and end up having to look for a chance to sell something you didn't want to own in the first place...

So, where are we since the start of this thread?

Then:

Now:

Giving:

FB is surprisingly in the lead and was by far the least popular choice.

Amazon did so-so and was second most popular.

GOOG was most popular and gave a pretty decent return.

AAPL? Well, I guess it kinda always sucked to be an Apple fanboy

if you had no idea and put equal weight to all of them, you would be 13% up on your money. not too bad.

The least popular shares usually make the best investments.....where everybody owns the most popular already....

However you would have unperformed the S&P 500, like 90% of fund managers.

However you have unperformed the S&P 500, like 90% of fund managers.

8 months is way too short a time scale to judge stock market investments.

Profits? But when do you take those profits? This is what puzzles me.

Don't get me wrong. I realise from your many self-congratulatory posts that you are an extremely perceptive and wealthy investor -- and I respect you for that. I sincerely wish I had your Midas touch!

But you say you kept holding Apple when the price halved in 2009. Excellent. And you've kept holding over the past year, with the decline from 700 to 400 or so.

But what are you actually holding for? At what price would you sell?

If you were a dividend investor, I could understand your attitude, but as a value investor, when DO you cash in your chips...?

Is it? Doesn't this depend on the stock, and why you bought it...?

A value investor might sell when he no longer saw value in the stock, I see more value in Apple today than at any time since I bought it, when it was a growth stock, it's become a value / income play, what's not to like about that? With the buy backs I will end up owning a larger percentage of the company without having to invest more, win win!

If you buy a house, do you set a time or market value at which you would sell? Why should buying great businesses be any different.

There are only a handful of companies I want to own, waiting to buy them at the right price is the problem.

Unless you a fund manager whose bonus's depend on monthly / 3 monthly & annual performance figures, it's irrelevant just noise.
The business cycle has no relationship with the time the sun takes to go round the world so why should yearly results be so important? It's 10 / 20 / 30 / 40 performance I am looking for.

There was a secretary who bought 3 shares in Abbot Laboratories when she stared her job. Total investment $120, at he death her holding had grown to over $7,000,000. I don't think she would have done better by trading & paying taxes, do you?

In other news: Google share price breaking all time highs...

after breaking 800 for the first time. it just broke 900. in fact, 910.

still bullish on google, but taken profits now and waiting for a better price to buy back in.

I am assuming that`s Abbott Laboratories? Did she get incentive shares as bonuses? Or was this straight return on the $120? Do you know the time frame?

I am only curious as I used to work for them in the UK. I do not have $7,000,000 maybe I should have stayed longer

If this was a swiss house everyone would be all over you warning that its a bubble and about to burst

Straight return on $120
50-60 years I guess , from her early 20's to when she died.

Anyone following Google IO? Really impressive stuff. Really confirms to me that Google is getting more aggressive and their superiority in software, IMO, is going to be the killer edge that will see them succeed over competitors.

Whats important is to buy whats out of favour, 12 months on the Athens General Index is +114.85% , Japan +75.79 even the SMI is up 40.99%. The general public are still talking about gold, so there is plenty of money to still be made in Equities.

Here is the article $180 over 75 years to $7,000,000 not as good as I thought! The $180 inflation adjusted is roughly $3000 in todays money.

http://www.celebritynetworth.com/art...ecret-fortune/

Another article spells it out: iPhone accounts for 65% of Apple's profits.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/richkarl...ont-be-greedy/

So, where are we since the start of this thread?

Then:

Now:

Giving:

Latest update. Google way ahead. AMZN and FB doing OK. AAPL still in the doldrums.

let's see what happens after the various earnings releases...

FB is now over 50% up. I just went to sell my shares and saw that I had no FB shares? WTF? Then I saw that there was a sell order that I had forgotten about - losing me most of today's 25% gain. that's one mistake you only make once... grrr.

anyway. i owned all of the 4 stocks listed and now own none of them. somehow i ended up with INTC (sale order didn't go through ) and McDonalds and Yum Brands.