http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-stock-at-a-new-all-time-high-2014-10 Good day for AAPL shareholders. It's trading above $103, almost $104 at one point per day. The last time it was this high was last August I believe. Remember, AAPL did a seven for one split so this is like a $721 dollar stock. Thoughts? Too big? Bubble ready to burst? Or still undervalued and poised for growth with the upcoming products?
I'm holding my shares for now. I'd like to see them spend some of that cash on some sound acquisitions though.
Given the strong numbers and next quarter guidance, this is definitely not a "bubble". This is a fundamentally solid company. When you believe Carl Icahn the stock should be trading around $200, according to him. What makes Apple so strong is it's eco system. Not only is the iPhone itself contributing to revenue growth, but what comes with it is more users buying apps, ebooks, music, games, etc. from Apple's iTunes store, which in itself generates massive revenues for the company.
This is just nitpicking, but the App Store and iTunes are separate from each other with the former taking all app revenues. Estimates peg revenues between the App Store and iTunes as being roughly equal at the moment, but the App Store is expected to bring in a majority of Apple's digital goods revenue starting either right around now or in early 2015. Apparently, Apple has already paid over $5.0 billion to app developers this year, which is just an insane figure to me.
Yes, the app store will continue to grow. As far as iTunes goes, you might have seen today that sales from music downloads were down another 12% last quarter. This is obviously a pain point for Apple, but having acquired beatsmusic, it looks like they will integrate the service into iTunes early next year. They are pushing for a $5/month subscription fee, which would significantly undercut the competition's current pricing model. If they're able to make it happen, this could truly be another big win for apple.
Yeah I've been thinking the same thing. How do you feel about the beats buyout? Do you think it was to help with bottom line or just for design purposes?
I don't think it was for "design purposes." Beats has a strong brand that's popular among younger consumers, which made it a good fit for Apple. As far as I know, the beats design team was actually let go/integrated into Apple's in-house design team. Therefore, future iterations of Beats headphones will likely come from Apple's own design team. Just my personal thought, but considering that iPod sales have declined to almost zero, Apple might integrate a music player into a future headphone set. After all, Apple is clearly not giving up on music in general. It's a big part of the company and it's obviously still a huge industry that just needs to monetized in new ways. I personally also believe that the main reason why Apple bought Beats was for BeatsMusic, the streaming music service that competes with Spotify. Beats music will be the way for Apple to offset declining download sales. Plus, Jony give and Dr. Dre - the founder of Beats (now Apple employees) - have very strong connections to music labels, giving Apple additional leverage when it comes to negotiating deals.
I am still holding my shares for this since it might be a bubble effect. In addition, it hasn't had growth in a big time so therefore it would be good to sell since can't know when the next spike would hit.
So are you holding on to your shares or are you selling your shares? The stock actually had a nice run this year - up over 20%! It's the biggest tech company in the world so expecting quick, 50% gains is unrealistic. Apple announced yesterday that Apple Pay had more than 1MM sign-ups during the first week of activation. Could turn into a huge market for apple. And you might have also heard that the new iPads have NFC chips build in, meaning small business owners will be eventually able to use iPads as point of sales transaction devices in their stores. Huge market. Apple pays a solid dividend and if the stock hits $150 or even $200 in the next few years, then that's a good, long term investment! Users on Tip'd off have been discussing the potential impact of Amazon's new TV stick on Apple TV. The stock had strong momentum today:
I think it will stay high but the success of the iPhone is reallly holding the company together. One major flop on the product and Apple will take a dive. However, they have enough money to get in many other markets in order to recover revenue if that does happen.
