Bad Apple

[Gob]

Apple diehards who keep saying the stock "will come back" are going into hibernation.

Shares of the gadget maker closed down another 2.7 per cent Friday to $US106.03 - knocking the stock down 21 per cent from its recent high of $US134.54. The breathtaking decline not only puts Apple into a bear market - defined by a 20 per cent drop - but has obliterated a staggering $US160 billion ($223 billion) in shareholder wealth from the top.
Just to put that into perspective, Apple's $US160 billion decline is larger than 477 companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 are worth. A drop this big is the financial equivalent of wiping out the market value of entire companies like Pepsico at $US146 billion, IBM at $US133 billion or Nike at $US111 billion.

Seeing such a massive decline in Apple carries more weight than a similar decline in any other stock would. Apple is still worth more than any other US company - making it the most important stock in market measures like the S&P 500. Apple also is the most widely held stock by individual investors, says Sigfig, so the decline directly hits home.
Troubling signs pointing to weakening demand for smartphones continues to dog the stock. Analysts are cutting growth expectations for the fourth quarter -- and even the first quarter - as they incorporate weaker demand. Despite efforts to diversify away from the mature smartphone market, Apple still gets a vast majority of its revenue and profit from smartphones.

A number of leading investment banks have been cutting earnings estimates on Apple along with price targets in some cases. Analysts on average now expect Apple to report adjusted quarterly profit of $US3.24 a share in the fourth calendar quarter, down 1per cent from a month ago, says S&P Capital IQ. Estimates for profit in the first calendar quarter have been cut 2.4 per cent from a month ago to $US2.41.

Estimate cuts for Apple are very unusual. Estimates for fourth quarter calendar profits were boosted last December, as well as in March, June and November.
Apple stock is being treated accordingly. Shares are now in the red for the year - despite massive doubling in value by other big-tech companies like Amazon and Netflix. Microsoft shares are up 16 per cent this year. Shares of Apple are down 4.1 per cent this year - which even lags the 2.6 per cent decline by the S&P 500.
Investors are wondering how bad the broad market selloff will get. But for investors in Apple - you're already in a bear market.


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/ ... z3uuRF0i9W
Follow us: @smh on Twitter | sydneymorningherald on Facebook

[rubato]

Back in the real world of value:

WGAF?

Apple and Steve Wozniack and Steve Jobs have changed the world. If the Apple company disappears in 10 years that will still be true. Nothing will ever be the same again.


No other entire country has changed the world as much as they already have.


yrs,
rubato

[wesw]

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q ... GbbdIJCQng

from threat-post...




by Michael Mimoso October 9, 2015 , 2:23 pm


Apple has purged its App Store of a number of apps that expose encrypted traffic via the installation of root certificates. Apple has declined to name the apps.

“Apple has removed a few apps from the App Store that install root certificates that could allow monitoring of data,” Apple said today in a statement on its website. “This monitoring could be used to compromise SSL/TLS security solutions.”

A request to Apple for further comment was not returned in time for publication.

Apple also suggested that in addition to deleting the apps in question, users should also be sure to delete the apps’ respective configuration profiles.

The offending apps not only installed root certificates, but some that were removed reportedly also provided ad-blocking capabilities in Safari and other apps such as Facebook.

One of the apps apparently is Been Choice, which via a root cert it installs, can block ads inside apps
- See more at: https://threatpost.com/apple-removes-ap ... Xpp3R.dpuf

[Gob]

No other entire country has changed the world as much as they already have.


yrs,
rubato

Just in case....

[wesw]

east india company?

[dales]

Vladimir Lenin?

[Long Run]

The high values of Apple had money managers in a bind over the last couple of years. Apple made up such a large share of the S&P 500 (the benchmark large cap managers are measured against), that they had to have a big chunk in Apple even if they believed this correction was coming. This is a merry noogie Christmas gift to everyone's portfolios since every index fund, and most stock funds are greatly influenced by Apple.

[Lord Jim]

No other entire country has changed the world as much as they already have.

[TPFKA@W]

I am thinking Germany in 1939 or so. Not all change is for the better.

[Lord Jim]

And just on the subject of companies...

The Edison Electric Light Company may have had just a tiny bit more impact than Apple...

And Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell may have changed the world just a wee bit more than Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak...

[Big RR]

As companies go, I would rank Apple right up there with the Edison and Bell companies and their progeny. Countries? Not so much. The Manhattan Project alone has had a much more profound effect on the world, changing the way we live, act, and think, much more than those companies combined.

[Lord Jim]

As companies go, I would rank Apple right up there with the Edison and Bell companies and their progeny.

I think "right up there" might be going a bit far...

(And to Edison and Bell I would add those two bicycle repair men, Wilbur and Orville Wright...)

Without electrical power being made commonly available, none of Apple's (or Microsoft's for that matter) inventions would even work...

And the "iPhone" , as wondrous a gadget as it may be, wouldn't be much if no one had ever invented, you know, the phone...

Jobs, Wozniak, and Gates have indisputably had an enormous and transformative impact on modern life...

But they stand on the shoulders of giants...

They don't stand next to them...

[Big RR]

Well neither Edison or Bell would have done anything if someone hadn't invented wires, batteries, and explored magnets and magnetism and electricity--they owe much to early scientists like Volta. Every innovator builds on the past and stands on the shoulders of the giants before them (even Newton recognized this), and that is no reason to not recognize innovation for the benefit it is. And personally, I have to include both PCs and cell phones in the most influential technologies of the past decades (biotech medicine and pharmaceuticals would be another).

[Lord Jim]

that is no reason to not recognize innovation for the benefit it is.

I don't believe I've done that...

I said:

Jobs, Wozniak, and Gates have indisputably had an enormous and transformative impact on modern life...

I'm just trying to lend a little perspective...

[dales]

I believe the "invention" of fire changed humankind in ways unimaginable.

[Long Run]

, none of the Apple's (or Microsoft's for that matter) inventions would even work...

One quibble with your generally on point observation -- what exactly did Microsoft ever invent? Every profitable product they have is a clone of another entity/person's invention. Have any of their own invented products done anything but fail miserably? Microsoft's genius has been in out-negotiating and out-marketing its competitors. Gates and the Microsoft crew, are great businessmen, but do not belong with the innovators who created new products that changed the world.

[Gob]

Henry Ford warrants a mention.

[dales]

He was on good terms with Adolf Hitler do to his rabid anti-Semitism.

[Bicycle Bill]

According to something or another I saw on the internet the most-used thing on an iPhone is the camera.  Therefore, the word is that next year Apple will do nothing to their current device; they will merely rename it the iCamera.
(ETA — And the sheeple will still stand in line to buy it.  *sigh......)

-"BB"-

[Big RR]