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AAPL should pull a GOOG and not give forward guidance. IBM this week pretty much did that too. - Another thought: "Gmail back after 30 hours down" You wonder why this headline was not smeared today by the MSFT cartel. If it was MobileMe, the shorts would have had a field day again.

I've been using my Gmail account steadily for the past 3 days and haven't seen any outage at all let alone 30 hours worth. When did this supposedly happen?? Was it a local outage?? What's the scoop??

What annoys me about reports like this is that they don't really think things through. For example, they cite the risk that Apple is reliant on Mac sales, since, "Mac sales, which make up nearly half the company's revenue, are premium products so some fear Apple is more vulnerable than competitors in a weak economy"

And yet, they don't realize that "nearly half the company's revenue", is based upon Apple deferring significant iPhone revs. If they didn't do that, then Mac sales would NOT be "nearly half the company's revenue". Let's look at this quarter, 3M Macs at an ASP of about $1400, would be about, $4.2B in Mac sales. If iPhone revs were fully recognized, and not deferred we'd see something like, 6M iPhones at an ASP of $400, or $2.4B in iPhone sales. But of course, Apple only recognizes 1/8th of that quarter's sales, and defers the other 7/8ths. After a while, things should even out with 8 quarters worth of deferrals, but because Apple is in the big growth phase of iPhone sales, that growth won't actually be seen for a few more quarters, when in fact, the explosive growth is really happening now.

These commentaries, look at balance sheets and income statements and just overlook the deferred income. Strangely, he mentions the strong cash flow, without really understanding what it truly means.

Just a few comments about AAPL from this week.

Oct.15th - Recommendation about AAPL from Gabelli
Gabelli recommends purchase of the stock at current levels and reiterates a Buy rating.
Oct.15th - Recommendation about AAPL from JMP Securities
After Apple launched new portable computers, the firm maintained their Market Perform rating.
Oct.15th - Apple-AAPL valuation remains compelling, says Citigroup
Citigroup believes Apple's new laptops are impressive and agrees with the company's decision to hold pricing. The firm reiterates a Buy rating and $170 target.
Oct.15th - Rec-Upgrade story about AAPL from JP Morgan
JP Morgan believes AAPL is far more diverse than what existed a decade ago and that its staying power is underappreciated.
Oct.14th - Apple-AAPL target raised to $125 from $110 at Goldman.
Oct.14th - Wedbush believes Apple's (AAPL) announcement and deployment of the MCP79 chipset is an incremental positive to shares of NVIDIA. The firm finds shares attractive and maintains a Buy rating.
Oct.13th - Bernstein upgraded shares on valuation as they view the long-term risk/reward compelling at current levels. Target lowered to $135 from $175.
Oct.12th - The Boy Genius Report sources say the iPhone (AAPL) may be coming to Walmart (WMT) in time for the holiday shopping start.
Oct.10th - Oppenheimer is willing to invest in Apple based on their belief that the company can grow more quickly than the 3% growth rate that they think is implied by the stock's current value. The firm maintained their Outperform rating, but slashed their target to $145 from $213.
Oct.9th - BMO Capital - The firm said there is no indication that iPhone run rates have slowed, but decided to cut their 2009 iPhone forecasts. The firm rates shares Outperform. Target $120.

It makes you wonder. The stock dipped to pre iPhone announcement prices. This is not right no matter how you look at it. Any thoughts?

...they forgot to use the word "beleaguered" in the article. Given that the media is tryng to cast as much gloom-and-doom as possible, you can't have a good bummer article without the "B" word. Certainly no self-respecting hack drive-by journalist on the Microsoft payroll (C|net - are you listening?) would ever file an article without the following:

- Security by obscurity
- Apple Tax
- Beleaguered
- Apple is doomed

So, based on the article above, we should do the following:

- Sell everything
- Grab your ankles
- Give in to radical Islam
- Draw a hot bath and open your wrists

Face it: according to the media, there's no hope. We're doomed. Everything you know is wrong. I guess that should pretty much cover things. But let me know if I missed something...

October 17, 2008
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Buy American. I Am.

By WARREN E. BUFFETT
Omaha

THE financial world is a mess, both in the United States and abroad. Its problems, moreover, have been leaking into the general economy, and the leaks are now turning into a gusher. In the near term, unemployment will rise, business activity will falter and headlines will continue to be scary.

So ... I’ve been buying American stocks. This is my personal account I’m talking about, in which I previously owned nothing but United States government bonds. (This description leaves aside my Berkshire Hathaway holdings, which are all committed to philanthropy.) If prices keep looking attractive, my non-Berkshire net worth will soon be 100 percent in United States equities.

Why?

A simple rule dictates my buying: Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful. And most certainly, fear is now widespread, gripping even seasoned investors. To be sure, investors are right to be wary of highly leveraged entities or businesses in weak competitive positions. But fears regarding the long-term prosperity of the nation’s many sound companies make no sense. These businesses will indeed suffer earnings hiccups, as they always have. But most major companies will be setting new profit records 5, 10 and 20 years from now.

Let me be clear on one point: I can’t predict the short-term movements of the stock market. I haven’t the faintest idea as to whether stocks will be higher or lower a month — or a year — from now. What is likely, however, is that the market will move higher, perhaps substantially so, well before either sentiment or the economy turns up. So if you wait for the robins, spring will be over.

A little history here: During the Depression, the Dow hit its low, 41, on July 8, 1932. Economic conditions, though, kept deteriorating until Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in March 1933. By that time, the market had already advanced 30 percent. Or think back to the early days of World War II, when things were going badly for the United States in Europe and the Pacific. The market hit bottom in April 1942, well before Allied fortunes turned. Again, in the early 1980s, the time to buy stocks was when inflation raged and the economy was in the tank. In short, bad news is an investor’s best friend. It lets you buy a slice of America’s future at a marked-down price.

Over the long term, the stock market news will be good. In the 20th century, the United States endured two world wars and other traumatic and expensive military conflicts; the Depression; a dozen or so recessions and financial panics; oil shocks; a flu epidemic; and the resignation of a disgraced president. Yet the Dow rose from 66 to 11,497.

You might think it would have been impossible for an investor to lose money during a century marked by such an extraordinary gain. But some investors did. The hapless ones bought stocks only when they felt comfort in doing so and then proceeded to sell when the headlines made them queasy.

Today people who hold cash equivalents feel comfortable. They shouldn’t. They have opted for a terrible long-term asset, one that pays virtually nothing and is certain to depreciate in value. Indeed, the policies that government will follow in its efforts to alleviate the current crisis will probably prove inflationary and therefore accelerate declines in the real value of cash accounts.

Equities will almost certainly outperform cash over the next decade, probably by a substantial degree. Those investors who cling now to cash are betting they can efficiently time their move away from it later. In waiting for the comfort of good news, they are ignoring Wayne Gretzky’s advice: “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been.”

I don’t like to opine on the stock market, and again I emphasize that I have no idea what the market will do in the short term. Nevertheless, I’ll follow the lead of a restaurant that opened in an empty bank building and then advertised: “Put your mouth where your money was.” Today my money and my mouth both say equities.

Warren E. Buffett is the chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, a diversified holding company.

Warren Buffett's op-ed reminds me of those spammers than pump stocks that are going to "explode."

Buffett's already bought in big time (e.g. Goldman Sachs), so now it's time to pump up the market so he can sell to suckers at a tidy profit.

Oct 17, 08 - 09:17 pm Comment from: ChrissyOne

"Buffett's already bought in big time (e.g. Goldman Sachs), so now it's time to pump up the market so he can sell to suckers at a tidy profit."

At last, you've figured out the market. We are chum in Warren's World - the secret is knowing which whale to grab hold of.

Oct 17, 08 - 09:26 pm Comment from: Always Right

"... some say..."

Sounds like Faux News.

@chrissyone
chum > sharks

Yep they are setting up Apple to where 29% growth is considered bad, screw you!!!!

You forgot the word liberal in the media. It's the typical liberal view. Apple's products are too nice and have too many nice things included with them. Not stripped down Windows junk. It's not fair that the welfare addict on the street corner can't buy one while the hard working people that drive the economy can. Acorn should get involved and start attacking Apple like they did the banks to get people that shouldn't have a mortgage a mortgage. Liberals are destroying this country and the media is a huge part of it. It's a total disgrace and disgusting. Barney Frank and Dodd need to be thrown in jail. Obama's right with them and just as guilty.

Sounds like CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, NY Slimes, Washington Compost, etc., etc., etc. at least Fox covers both sides and in doing so the other side. Practically everything else is the liberal Obama Channel. Always Wrong is a commie.

why don't you crawl back under your rock. it was nice when you took a break from MDN.

"Investors are waiting to see just how much the global economic slowdown has hurt Apple Inc. when it reports quarterly results on Tuesday, as the company works to prove that it can sell high-end products even in lean times,"

As compared to Dell, who has a hardscrabble business even in good times?

Anyone who's questioning Apple's survivability doesn't know what hard times are really about.

Oct 18, 08 - 12:25 pm Comment from: DogGone

I'm hoping Apple can break the 3M Mac barrier. If not this quarter probably the next. 5 years ago they sold barely a million a quarter.

This will put Apple close to #5 in the world and up with the big boys in terms of unit sold. We all know profitability is greater for Apple but unit sales is still a physiological factor.

Just another FUD story from another idiot!!!

The issue boils down to what Mr. Oppenheimer forecasts and says about the fiscal 1st quarter. Assuming he makes a forecast - and he could say that things are so uncertain that he can't make a forecast - he will likely be very conservative as usual and it is difficult to see the stock not tanking as a consequence.

I can see the stock going up (or at least not going down) under three circumstances:

1. Estimates have come down so far that Mr. O's forecast is in-line.

2. Apple's sales trends in Sept and Oct remain unaffected by the financial crisis and apparent recession.

3. Mr. O announces a stock buyback program or a $0.75 quarterly dividend (yielding over 3% at today's sub-100 stock price.)

A dividend sounds very attractive to me. First of all, it would cost the company less than 3 billion dollars a year. Not that much compared to a growing cash hoard nearing 25B. A three percent return on my money while the stock is in the dumps with lots of capital gain potential sounds much better than a money market fund. Plus, now is the time to do something. If not now, when? It would be stupid to buy back stock at $150-200 when the stock is under $100.

This is the time for Apple to do something re: divd or buyback. There won't be a better time unless you expect a total meltdown. It would be stupid for Apple to wait a year or two or three when the stock is much higher. Now is the time.

Oct 18, 08 - 05:45 pm Comment from: KingMel

"If you think Mac users are going to downgrade to a Windows PC in order to "save" themselves a few dollars upfront, then you don't understand Mac users at all."

Got that right, MDN. A Windows PC is just a headache and a worry. I have better things to do than routinely run antivirus and antispyware/malware programs. I have better things to do than struggle with Microsoft flaws that are called "features."

Macs are not perfect and MacOS X is not perfect. But they are evolving in the right direction and I am convinced that I have chosen wisely. The so called "Mac tax" is actually a tax rebate when you consider the utility of Macs in terms of enjoyment and productivity. I am not a lemming or a "fanbois" as the trolls would like to believe to assuage their own frustration and sense of inferiority. I made a conscious choice and that choice is Mac.

Oct 19, 08 - 01:11 am Comment from: Predrag

If you know anything about AAPL as a stock, or Apple as a company, you'll know that there will be no dividend anytime soon, nor stock buyback. Dividend would imply the stock itself has levelled and has no more room for rapid growth, and the stockholders need to be motivated to buy. That is just absurd.

Same goes for buyback -- implying that there is nothing else (i.e. rapid growth) that could grow the value of the stock. Just as absurd.

And what is with this thread, people? How come nobody is complaining about the lack of FireWire on MacBook? Come on, folks!

Actually, the payment of a dividend has nothing to do with a stock that has leveled. It is a question of what to do with excess capital. Apple can continue to hoard cash that earns a negligible rate of return compared to its business. It can invest in other assets by making a large acquisition, say $10-30B size. Or it can start returning some of it (and I'm talking of a small percentage) to shareholders (the owners of the company) to be better invested elsewhere (hopefully.) Basic finance, there's nothing absurd here.

Same goes for buyback - implying management sees investing in itself as providing an excellent return far beyond the negligible amount it is earning on excess capital today. Investing in itself by buying back stock at 90 that is likely to double within three years (and possibly much sooner) is a far better investment than T-bills, etc. Again, hardly absurd. Actually, very smart investing. You know, buy low, sell high?

Investing in itself by buying back stock at 90 that is likely to double within three years (and possibly much sooner)

Which stock is that? The same AAPL that, at not even a year ago, was was being predicted to hit $600?

AAPL could indeed do very well in the next three years. But there is plenty of risk and haze in the forecast.
I wouldn't be counting on runaway growth just yet.

And what is with this thread, people? How come nobody is complaining about the lack of FireWire on MacBook?

Probably the same reasons we're not killing each-other over politics and glossy screens:

Seems like the more reasonable people post on weekends.
MDN has been actively deleting the off-topic posts.
And maybe this group, which prides itself in its intelligence and Internet savviness, finally managed to find the right places to discuss things.