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Permalink Like Dislike I'm buying up July puts today. So far I've got 20 x $280, 20 x $285, and 20 x $300. I'm also selling May $350 calls
- ipad clones getting very good
- Google is entering the market
- iphone and droid sales currently about even
- product shortages for apple coming
- chart looks identical to Google in late 2007
I haven't been to Vegas for awhile so this is my gambling for the month.
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As a long term investor I don't day trade. Their cash flow is fantastic:
http://yahoo.brand.edgar-online.com/displayfilinginfo.aspx?FilingID=7872142-13623-18402&type=sect&dcn=0001193125-11-104388
With every gamble there is a risk and every gambler eventually loses. Where do you get the list of insider trades that you posted btw because in a publicly traded company sales by management staff have to be approved. They are very regulated.
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Gang I think Iwog might win here, purely on the "sell in May and go away" doldrums.
I'm not so convinced about insider selling. I think lots of people in companies that are on this trajectory will decide now's a time to pull a few bucks out to buy a Lotus or a giraffe, just because there seems a plateau. The numbers of shares don't seem that high, not like they are dumping their whole portfolio.
Now Angelo Mozilo was much more damning behavior, he was dumping a chunk twice a week every week for a long while. Angelo was clearly getting out ahead of the rubes.
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47 male
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I figure the chance of me losing my investment here is 50%.
The payoff for being right however should be at least 5 to 1.
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My Shanghai friend also mentioned in her email to me just now that she saw the pictures of the multitudes in the Apple store in China. "Apple products are very popular in China. Many people love brand name stuff, they save up several months salary to buy one iPhone or iPad."
The world consumer is drooling and begging to hand over wads of cash to Apple. Apple can't even keep up with the demand forstuff that they make $300 per unit profit on.
Of course, we can predict that this behavior will suddenly stop for no reason except that it's "sell in May and go away." I don't believe it myself.
But, since the stock market is an auction, no one can predict how it will behave between now and July. That's why index funds beat most managed funds.
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clambo says
In the 80s, Chinese save 2 to 3 years to buy a color TV.
Now, it only takes 2 to 3 months to buy an iPad. A major improvement !!!
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There are no markets any longer, only manipulation, regulation and intervention - all for the common good of course.
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If I walk into the store apple products are flying off the shelves, and they are very good products. People I talk to overseas or locally want to buy iPhones and iPads. Besides we don't day trade, and we do very good. Following simple Warren Buffets advice, hold and never sell.
Working out very well for us.
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Ptipking222's website
Generally peaks are when everyone is buying things (faddish peaks). Time to buy is when you know a group likes a product immensely and the general population is likely to follow the group.
Or, for example, a store/brand is local and will likely go national and you know as a local that the brand is awesome.
I think Apple is overloved as both a stock and a fad. I don't see it going the way of beanie babies by any means, but I think the premium people will pay to have an 'iphone' over another smartphone will be much lower in a year or two.
Either way, I'm seeing China bubble and the dollar overhated, so I can see some stock weakness going forward, though I don't think AAPL will get hit as bad as stocks leveraged to China.
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clambo says
China is a dictatorial ponzi scheme about to break. Here's what the Chinese economy is from what I can tell:
-People are paid $1-$2 an hour. Economy is totally dependent on cheap labor to make us shit that we could probably make better ourselves but it's cheaper to pay some slave to make it and ship it over here.
-China is largely dependent on exporting to Europe which is under severe pressure due to their banks being overleveraged to shit sovereign debt making our banks look responsible during our mortgage lending boom.
-Chinese economy is now also largely dependent on a housing bubble that's bursting at the seems. Families have saved generational money for a downpayment for an overpriced condo because they think it's the right thing to do. This money has trickled its way up to corrupt government officials. There is tons of corruption and government officials make out like bandits off of the housing bubble. Often government officials take that money and gamble it in Macao for shits and giggles creating a Macao bubble (why I think Macao casinos are the best short right now)
-Fundamentally, country is not free and has no middle class. As these things unwind, it's not going to be pretty.
-Contrarian signs abound about China. Every day I see some sitcom making references about how big China is about to be. My idiot friends think China is the next big thing (people that are not political/economic oriented at all). Mom's friends that are always bubble believers think learning Chinese is the way to go.
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To continue my China rant, an important point I forgot is that there are a tons of Chinese IPOs right now. Insiders are selling and getting out while the getting is good.
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47 male
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:)
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I was not extolling the virtues of China. I have been there on business and I will stop here.
I only mention that Apple products are coveted anywhere.
I was also in a small city in Mexico last December. In the Starbuck's I saw iPods, iPads, Apple laptops.
In airports last fall I saw Macbook airs all over the place.
I think Apple has sold about 59 million iPhones so far, but I am not sure.
Either way, I do not really have the strength of my convictions, I have the vast majority of my financial investments in mutual funds, and I hope to leave them alone for 15+ years.
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clambo says
I understand. I just kinda was ranting about China anyways to someone else while I stumbled on this thread again ;)
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Those who shorted microsoft a while ago were the right ones.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zEQhhaJsU4
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clambo says
Thats completely unrelated.
If you walk into the Apple store today it will be packed, their products are flying off the shelves.
On the other hand Steve Balmer at MSCorp has been struggling to come up with any revolutionary ideas. I think windows phone and cloud computing will be interesting few years down the line, but ultimately Microsoft for whatever the reason does not invent, they just embrace and extend.
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Chris, that's what I have seen also. I have written my positive opinion of Apple above. Presently I think it is a juggernaut. I love making fun of Microsoft since Ballmer was on record making fun of the iPhone, etc.
Under Ballmer microsoft stock nav has been flat or falling. I wonder if they will kick Ballmer to the curb soon.
Apple rocks.
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I look at Jobs and Ballmer and I see two totally different personalities. Former is an engineer who can really lead, and latter is more of a politician.
To me it was interesting when several days ago Microsoft acquired Skype, knowing Ballmer there is something big being planned, but I'm really not sure what it is.
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I'm not sure I'd call Jobs an engineer. He has way more tech chops than most people give him credit for, but his real skills are imagination, vision, and hiring and motivating super-talented people who share (or will internalize) those ideas to make them happen.
I see Ballmer as a bombastic B-school guy of totally unknown talent.. All of the years of MSFT success could easily be attributed to Gates' leadership (with Ballmer's presence but contribution unclear), and the last decade of MSFT stagnation attributed to Ballmer's direction or lack thereof. Gates stumbled frequently on the vision thing, and arguably held back the industry as a whole, but he still channeled a fair amount of that exogenous force (moore's law, etc) into products.
I totally disagree about the Skype thing. I think the "something big" is integration with MSFT's existing services that people don't use or care about. That acquisition was a defensive thing. I don't believe that MSFT knows what to do with Skype, nor how to value it...just that Skype has a popular consumer service that they don't know how to build themselves, and don't realize how close it is to being commoditized.
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Woz was the genius engineer.
Jobs will always be famous to me for one quote, while hiring Scully from Coke he asked him:
Do you want to "sell sugar water for the rest of your life or come with me and change the world?
I think this was Jobs in a nutshell, he's the passionate vision guy.
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And an updated story about APPL price manipulation:
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/05/15/how-the-market-in-apple-weeklys-is-rigged/?iid=HP_LN
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Well I was an option seller when I posted this. I sold $350 calls for $2.30 that expire next week and right now things are looking very good.
However the week started out much closer to $350 than $340, and people who wrote $350 puts got major beatings.
Then you've got the 345ers and 335ers who win or lose to various degrees. Open interest on those is almost as high as the even numbers.
I just don't see how it's possible with so many conflicting interests to manipulate a stock to guarantee a profit. I'd be interested to know how that's possible considering the value of the option and the value of the stock that close to expiration is almost 1:1.
I was watching aapl very closely on Friday because of my trades. The one thing which was obvious from the beginning was that AAPL was underpeforming the indexes and it continued throughout the day. This is extremely bearish and is probably what caused such a big selloff at the end.
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I think options trading is very different from what we are doing. We invest and hold so it's a bit different.
Made good money with AAPL, ironically AIG has made us money as of late too.
Iwog do you do any long term investments, or do you just trade options?
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Vicente says
There were quite a few whistles blown lately about silver/gold price manipulation. This is the first one I see on apple. I guess anything is possible.
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ChrisLA says
I do mostly long term investments. I only gamble occasionally.
The reason I shorted Apple on Thursday was the uncanny resemblance to Google in 2007.
Like Apple, everyone owned it and everyone recommended it. There was absolutely no reason why it should go down, which is exactly why there were no buyers to take it higher. It dropped 30% in a matter of months even while earnings kept going up and kept beating estimates.
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Update: I covered my naked $350. call (phew!) for 18 cents and gained enough to cover the rest of my trades plus a little bit of lunch money.
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Nice hit
What do you think about wfc current price? Who will make it into the teens first, citi or wells?
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Wells is a Buffet stock this year. But the deals Buffet gets are not the same as mom and pop investors get.
Citi was announcing that they were splitting their shares recently, so I don't know what happened since.
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Good call with Apple IWOG.. i sold all my shares at $349 (cost basis around $70)... (needed down payment money.. so timing the near top.. was all luck). I'm still LONG apple and looking for a good entry point from here... At this point though, the stock market is looking very wobbly.
I think your over-estimating Apple's competition and it's "product shortage" problem is hardly a problem long term. If the economy and stock market doesn't tank.. Apple will recover this fall heading toward Xmas season.
I'm sitting on the sidelines with about $10K in IRA money in a money market account... $30K unfortunately is tied to a company 401K where I only have options of big funds to invest in.... aggressive, conservative... ect... Takes all the fun out of investing when it's some giant mutual fund beast that moves with the market whims...
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article came out a few days ago that apple has enough cash to buy all the makers of mobile devices except for samsung.
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My analogy to Nazi Germany is not to equate APPL with evil. Evil no, arrogance yes.
There's something telling when the emphasis of the organization shifts from nose to the grindstone values to grandiosity. Like, that proposed Cupertino Palace. A workplace perk for the employees, an organization now in self-idolization. The buzz, the emphasis, shifting from other priorities like fiduciary responsibilities to stockholders, or Total Customer Satisfaction, to grandiosity. It doesn't even matter if the freakin' APPL ORB ever even gets built: like the Grandiose plans for Welthaupstadt Germania Berlin, that plan represents an Arrogance Bubble.
Just like other Grandiose Workplace Palace Proposals, say like, the Pan Am building in Manhattan, this one is seconded by all sorts of local community sycophants who will have much to gain if the project proceeds. That much-lauded by Manhattanites and local-gov't Pan Am building did indeed get built and used, as did some of the grandiose projects in Berlin, at the peak of their Organizational Arrogance Bubbles.
Where I might differ with iwog is on the timing.
It took several years after Jobs' departure for Apple to decline to near failure last time after he pitched similar grandiose plans for the Coyote Valley. Probably will take several years this time too.
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They have consistently proven an ability to convince a devoted fanbase to pay a premium price for every one of their products. It remains to be seen whether they can keep that magic formula, or become just another device maker.
I gave up on them after my fourth iPod bit the dust.
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twd000 says
yeah,
like the Dotcom Bubble,
Housing Bubble,
China Bubble,
now the Apple Bubble.
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I don't think Apple is a bubble. They are more like a juggernaut. But, history shows nothing lasts forever.
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clambo says
Yep, fill in the blank:
I don't think (blank) is a bubble. They are more like a juggernaut.
(Disclosure: typing this on an APPL product).
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I think wormwood is a few fries short of a happy meal.
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wormwood says
Not much else I can say. You'd call a man moving his family out of the way of a tsunami an opportunist and a hypocrite and someone who doesn't care if the rest of his village dies.
You and your right-wing lunatic friends have destroyed our economy, so there's really not much left for me to do but short the back side.
Would you rather I stand in front of the onrushing train like most people will do?
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wormwood says
Why would I say that? Derivatives represent a worldwide casino and trading in derivatives is nothing more than gambling. End.
wormwood says
Wow......seriously? Of course I like and use capitalist markets. Of course I wholeheartedly endorse capitalism!! Did you screw up and start believing your own bullshit for a moment? Fricken hilarious. LOL
wormwood says
I see my previous attempt at getting you to see reason flew right over your head, so let me try another one.
Is a person who buys food and water in preparation for a disaster also someone who likes to see people suffer?
What makes your assertion so bloody stupid is what actually happens when a stock is shorted. You've got someone who wants to buy shares in a corporation, and a short seller steps up and sells it to them. (usually cheaper since short sellers increase supply) Soooooooooooo........does this transaction piss you off?
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wormwood says
I've written more essays than I can remember on the subject. If you really care, you can easily look them up.
wormwood says
Wow, more rage against short sellers. Dude, you need therapy like TODAY!
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wormwood says
I'll repeat myself again since you missed it the first time. I think capitalism is great. I don't think capitalism is evil. I think free-market unrestrained capitalism is a dead end system, but I think it can be modified by government controls to be sustainable and effective.
Moderation is the key to everything, even politics. Being a radical nut just makes everyone laugh at you.
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iwog says
Correction. Free-market unrestrained capitalism under a fiat currency regime is not really free-market. free-market unrestrained capitalism under a fiat currency = rigged market capitalism. This can be modified by government controls to make it work.