Bad Apple

[Gob]

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Shares of Apple Inc, the largest U.S. company by market value, are set to finish the year in the red on notable weakness for a stock that had largely been impervious to pain for several years.

* Apple Inc shares are on track to finish the year down 4 percent, its first down year since 2008.

* Shares have shed about a fifth of their value since touching a high of $134.54 on April 28, and are down 17.5 percent since the inclusion of the stock in the Dow Jones industrial average in March.

* Declines this year have wiped out about $57 billion in Apple's market capitalization, about as much as fellow Dow component DuPont Co is worth. Apple is currently worth about $590 billion.

* Headed into the last day of trading, the S&P 500 was up 0.22 percent for the year-to-date. Excluding Apple, the index would be up 0.31 percent, according to Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at S&P Dow Jones Indices.

[Gob]

Shares of Apple tumbled 2.6% in trading Tuesday following a report the tech giant will cut production on its latest iPhone in the January-March quarter.

According to Japan's Nikkei, Apple will slash production of models of its iPhone 6S and 6S Plus by 30% during the second quarter of Apple's fiscal year.

The report says Apple (AAPL) initially told parts makers in Japan and South Korea to maintain production at the same level as last year, when the company launched the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. However, slower sales prompted Apple to adjust production.

Production is expected to return to normal during Apple's third quarter, between April and June, says the report.

Apple could not be reached for comment.

Company shares declined 2.6%, to $102.71.

“This is an eye-opening production cut which speaks to the softer demand that Apple has seen with 6S out of the gate,” says Daniel Ives, senior analyst at FBR Capital Markets, said in an interview. “The Street was bracing for a cut, but the magnitude is a bit more worrisome and speaks to a soft March quarter on the horizon.”


USA TODAY

[liberty]

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...

I was with Rub until Jim made his profound statement. He is right the world was very a different place before electric lights and the telephone. Before the light bulb most people could not afford to adequately light homes. According to James Burk in his book Connections the light bulb lead to a more informed and educated society. Before the electric light most people went to sleep when night fell Instead of reading, studying or going to night school which opened up such things to many more people. If someone says what about all the well lighted saloons as seen in westerns, I am then going have to say you have been watching too much TV.

(Text added for clarity)

[dgs49]

The common stock values of companies that are "popular" often have no connection with their theoretical financial value (i.e., 12-20 x earnings). Putting a lot of money in Apple stock is foolishness that deserves at least some punishment.

But I kinda-sorta agree with rubato on the importance of Apple. Between its innovations in microcomputers, the I-pod, the I-pad, smart phones, and all the rest of it, their impact on peoples' lives has been monumental, regardless of what today's P&L looks like. Not up to the invention of fire or the wheel, but monumental.

[Gob]

Between its innovations in microcomputers, the I-pod, the I-pad, smart phones, l.

Micro computers pioneered by Sinclair.
Mobile phones by Motorola
I-pod by Sony (Walkman)

[Big RR]

True but Apple was instrumental in making micro (personal) computers accessible to the masses, in bth making more compact phones and giving far more access to data and services than Motorola ever dreamed of, and in taking the clunky Walk Man and making it into a digital system that could be used to download vast libraries of songs digitally, permitting the user to keep whatever music they wanted at their fingertips.

As I said before, like every other innovator/innovation firm Apple used technology provided by others and made it into something far more marketable and affordable, with many more attractive features. No one invents in a vacuum.

[Gob]

Sinclair release their microcomputers at the same time as Apple, and although not as successful over time, it was the biggest seller in the UK and Europe. In Europe mobile phone networks had become commonplace, (they had started in Germany as early as 1947,) long before Apple entered the market.

I'm not saying that Apple weren't great at making well selling products, just that they "stood on the shoulders of giants".

[Crackpot]

While Gob goes around pissing in people's corn flakes using the power of his own bladder

[Big RR]

I'm not saying that Apple weren't great at making well selling products, just that they "stood on the shoulders of giants".

As has every other innovator or inventor throughout history.

[Gob]

I'm not saying that Apple weren't great at making well selling products, just that they "stood on the shoulders of giants".

As has every other innovator or inventor throughout history.

Exactly right, laying waste to Asperger boy's claim;

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

[dales]

Sinclair release their microcomputers at the same time as Apple, and although not as successful over time, it was the biggest seller in the UK and Europe. In Europe mobile phone networks had become commonplace, (they had started in Germany as early as 1947,) long before Apple entered the market.

I'm not saying that Apple weren't great at making well selling products, just that they "stood on the shoulders of giants".

Like Xerox Parc?

Sinclair release their microcomputers at the same time as Apple, and although not as successful over time....

[Jarlaxle]

, 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.

What did Henry Ford invent? Not the automobile...not the assembly line...but he put them together in a new way, and changed the world.

[oldr_n_wsr]

I am a fan of the printing press being one of the top inventions of all time.

[Big RR]

I agree oldr, but then Mr Gutenberg probably wouldn't have invented anything without others inventing paper, ink and dyes, people who worked with metals and wood, the invention of the screw to permit the appropriate amount of pressure to be applied, etc.

[oldr_n_wsr]

And that guy that invented the wheel. He was a genius. I can't remember his name though.

[RayThom]

And that guy that invented the wheel. He was a genius. I can't remember his name though.

Atouk Slaghoople, Wilma Flintstone's great-great-grandfather, invented the prototype of the wheel. It was originally made of bridge stone.

[oldr_n_wsr]

I'll try and remember that.

[Bicycle Bill]

And that guy that invented the wheel. He was a genius. I can't remember his name though.

Atouk Slaghoople, Wilma Flintstone's great-great-grandfather, invented the prototype of the wheel. It was originally made of bridge stone.

-"BB"_

[Gob]

Alphabet, the company that was once known as Google (and which still owns and operates that ubiquitous search engine) is now bigger, in terms of stockmarket value than Apple.


As of right now, following its strong quarterly earnings report, which pushed shares up by 6 per cent in after hours trading, Alphabet is worth about $US548 billion ($770 billion), eclipsing Apple, which was worth $US538 billion at the time of publication.

A few caveats. These calculations are based on prices in the after hours trading session in the US, which is less liquid and less official (if that makes sense) than the regular hours trading session. Usually (but its not a certainty) shares will follow a similar path tomorrow. That said, markets move around a lot, and it wouldn't take much for Apple to regain its lead. Also, we are using equity market value, not enterprise value (another measure of size, which incorporates the amount of debt a company has issued, less the cash it holds).


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/ ... z3yxrzZMTo
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[rubato]

Google has a lot of advantages as a business. By capturing most of the search engine business in the 1st world they have multiple revenue streams which will only grow over time. And the information they can glean from how and when people search for the name of a movie, celebrity, politician, artist, musician, &c gives them a singular ability to provide value which was never avail. before. the Google search engine is a money machine unequalled.


Apple's success has been based on something much more difficult to sustain. They have brought out a series of world-beating products which utterly changed how people used computers, phones, music devices &c. But in order to continue their success they have to do something much harder than anyone else has ever done. And they do it beautifully, elegantly. They understood more deeply how humans interact with computers (and other machines) and gave them something that removed all of the hard edges and threats of failure. If you go back to the iMac and look at the progression of events you can see it:




They have always been the most elegant designs by far. And the least threatening; no tangle of wires to intimidate the less-technically minded (the biggest audience).


How do you keep creating revolutions in everything? Google is a behemoth, very difficult to displace and can run on momentum*, but Apple can only keep being Apple by continuing to be geniuses. Not easy.


But they are unique in other ways as well. They are very young and give a lot of responsibility to 30ish engineers and technicians, very decentralized decision-making; very anti-top-down.



yrs,
rubato

* like Amazon today.