That’s all folks.
and more characters
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And today another high, closing at 243.01…
A blurb from Barron’s sorts it out a bit…
###### iPhone Maker’s Stock Continues to Climb Despite Skeptics
Apple shares are rising despite lukewarm enthusiasm for its iPhone 16 and its promised artificial intelligence features. The stock hit another 52-week high, gaining in six of the past seven trading sessions. It’s boosted by its status in the Magnificent Seven, as are shares of Meta Platforms, which hit a record high.
** Apple has held its place as the world’s biggest company by market value, at $3.668 trillion, according to Dow Jones Market Data, with the stock up 26% this year. Shares are rallying despite reports that iPhone sales lag competitors, and consumers appear underwhelmed by the AI features.*
** Wedbush senior equity analyst Dan Ives says Apple’s prospects are better than the recent skepticism suggests, telling Barron’s that the Street is starting to realize the iPhone 16 is the start to a supercycle of sales and that China sales look robust, “sending the bears into hibernation.”*
** Separately, Apple’s Benoit Dupin, director of machine learning and AI, said the company is using Amazon Web Services’ custom AI chips for search and other services and is considering using its latest AI chip to pre-train models like Apple Intelligence, CNBC reported.*
** Shares of Meta, the parent of Instagram and Facebook, have been rallying since Nov. 18, and are up nearly 8% since CEO Mark Zuckerberg dined with President-elect Donald Trump on Nov 27. The surge in tech stocks has helped lift the S&P 500 and Nasdaq to new records.*
What’s Next: Ives, who rates Apple shares Outperform with a $300 price target, expects iPhone 16 sales to usher in an AI-driven iPhone supercycle that will break iPhone’s annual sales record, spur 90 million users to upgrade their iPhones, and help Apple reach a $4 trillion market value in 2025.
—Janet H. Cho and Adam Levine
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Thanks for the link and the summary.
It sounds like a bunch of different people are positing a bunch of different and squishy reasons for AAPL’s recent performance. No one seems to be figuring in the Trump tariffs into the future of Apple.
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Well, we’ll have to wait it out, see whether any of the tariffs actually come to pass, hoping that some of the more sensible can limit the damage… Likely it will dump the overall market if it actually happens… Mind bending it came to this possibility… There will be ripples, waves… Need a lifejacket, I guess…
And today, 12/9/24 we see another APPL jump…
246.75 +3.91 (+1.61%) At close: 4:00:01 PM EST
Market Cap (intraday) 3.73T
and 247.24 +0.49 (+0.20%) After hours: 7:59:57 PM EST
Still awaiting OS/iOS/AI updates, should happen this week…
Irrational Exuberance??
We’re either in a “Santa Clause Rally” or a “Trump Bump”. Hopefully Trump is more concerned with market appearances than with keeping any of his more insane promises: mass deportations, massive tariffs, repealing the CHIPS act, etc.
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And today, Friday, 1220/24, yet another jump…
254.49 +4.70 +(1.88%) At close: 4:00:03 PM EST
255.35. +0.86 +(0.34%) After hours: 7:59:59 PM EST
Market Cap (intraday) - 3.847T
Volume 125,429,724
We had a dip earlier, this recovery followed… Volume was way up, yet up it came… Interesting…
Where to next??
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$300 here we come! Trump, please don’t eff things up!
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Well, we’ve hit a bit of a speed bump, it seems after a couple up days, today we’re at 228.26 -9.61 (-4.04%) so we do need some GOOD news to get back on track… Hopefully this will be a bottom, for now… Fingers crossed!
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I hope Cook continues to curry favor with our soon-to-be wanna-be dictator. Cook already “donated” 1 million to Trump’s inauguration campaign - ahem, I mean personal bank account - just like all the other tech bros. Time to step up the donations ASAP.
Musk knew well what he was doing spending 250 million to help Trump get elected. Unless he has a falling out with Trump, Tesla and SpaceX will be sitting pretty for the next 4 years. Musk is keen on buying Greenland as well, even enlisting a personal friend (co-founder of PayPal I believe) to try to make it happen.
My 2 cents is that this hard decline has everything to do with the China iPhone sales news.
I expect this to be a short term dip (<1 year, maybe shorter). News about iPhone sales weaknesses in China come out pretty regularly. If I were the suspicious sort, I might say they come out every 3 months, on schedule. AAPL gets pushed down, and then a month or two later, it’s all forgotten.
Personally, as big as the Chinese economy may be, I think investors, the press, and even Apple put too much emphasis on that market, though my opinion of the Chinese economy is certainly skewed by my own personal travels in Asia.
The thing about AI not boosting iPhone sales isn’t as important, IMO, as more long-term weaknesses in Apple’s product line, notably the absence of new product categories for a long time. I’m not a strong believer that Apple has to – or even has the ability to – invent or reinvent entire product categories purely at will. The absence of the fabled Apple Television (not to be confused with Apple TV) and the Apple Car is proof of that.
But, it has been a very long time since an Apple product made a huge splash like the first few iPhones. The Apple Watch may dominate its category with a 21% market share, but the Apple Vision Pro certainly isn’t a must-have product.
-awlabrador
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Not yet anyway. I’m pretty sure Apple is working on integrating Vision Pro with AI in some way, but they also really need to create a much cheaper version at less than $2000 before it is more widely adopted.
Or the failure of its AI news summaries, which Apple is cancelling. Or it’s performance in China, it’s 2nd largest market, where it is now falling in sales to new competitors.
It’s said the market looks forward. Sometimes, I think, it gets carried away with itself and doesn’t.
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Well, for now it’s obviously spooked, maybe creating another buying opportunity for some, but I’m out of that, long retired, long term holding seems to be the game here, waiting to see what happens next… Plotting on chasing down some Dungeons Crab this weekend out on the coast… (Bodega Bay, CA)
Apple stock bounced back Friday as Wall Street shifted its focus to the iPhone maker’s coming earnings report.
As a LTBH investor, it’s not really worth my personal effort to go back and see how frequently reports of lowered iPhone sales in China are followed by bounce backs in AAPL and renewed focus on actual earnings – or, how often are poor Chinese market share reports followed by actually poor earnings, below expectations and what used to be called whisper numbers.
I’m not being a fanboy. I’m being skeptical of reports.
-awlabrador
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Apple is my largest holding by far (because I’ve been holding it for decades). But the fact is that growth has been anemic at best for the last few years. And you (me!) always have to ask the question if anemic growth deserves a P/E of 35. Over the last 15-20 years, there have been short periods where the Apple P/E was much lower, and it could indeed happen again. In the mid 2000s, it was 10 or close to 10. I think it was under 20 until 5 or 6 years ago. Only recently did it pop to 30 and remain around there except for a brief period at the end of 2022 when it dropped like a rock (and I availed myself of the opportunity to enter into some very profitable options positions, some of which delightfully expired worthless this very weekend).
It’s so odd though, that the P/E was ~20 during the fabulous growth period, and is ~30 during the anemic growth period. I suppose even after 40+ years of investing, I still don’t understand the market.
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