Apple Inc (AAPL)

This breached $800 billion in market cap making it the largest stock ever. He likes to think he can buy a stock that will double his money in 5 years, and he can’t imagine this one will double in size in the next 5 years. Has a hard time getting excited about this.

This just hit an all-time high. Technically, you have to love this. Strong upward trend and outperforming the market. On a seasonal basis, it tends to move higher this time of year in anticipation of the September launches they always have. However, it does take a pause in May, June and early July. It doesn’t go down, it just kind of sits there for a while.

An inexpensive technology stock. Wishes they would pay more of a dividend, simply because they have so much cash. The trouble is, a lot of earnings come from one product. That product can continue to grow, and is a very high margin product for them. Their service area is growing as well. Have a lot of cash, and they buy back a lot of shares. There is a good upgrade cycle on the phone. Their services business is additive, but not great. If they were allowed to bring their overseas cash back to the US, that would substantially help them out because they could buy back more of their shares.

A myriad of multinational companies with off shore cash would be huge beneficiaries of the opportunity to repatriate cash. He does not view Apple as a tech company, but as a consumer discretionary company. This is one of highest weights on the NASDAQ. There is probably room for continued dividend growth. It would be a beneficiary of more relaxed regulatory action in the US.

Loves this company. Has always been a big believer in the services side and was never too concerned about the fancy phone releases. The services side is going to be the real driver. Longer-term, we are probably looking at a $50 billion a year revenue line, just from the services side.

(A Top Pick Dec 23/16. Up 23%.) This has been a great buy. Has reduced his holdings, because the catalysts he was looking for hasn’t happened yet. Two of them were related tax reforms, particularly the possible repeat duration of offshore funds. He is also hearing of delays of iPhone 8. He still likes this. Still at a reasonable valuation.

Has a target price of about $168. The dividend will go up. Their new product seems to be taking hold. This is not expensive, trading at about 15X.

The valuation is not expensive. He loves it from that perspective. The Samsung 8 is getting great reviews and that is putting pressure on AAPL-Q. In a correction it could come back to $120 and would be more attractive there. Wait for the next iPhone to come out.

(A Top Pick, May 5/16. Up 54%.) Had felt this was very cheap on a valuation basis. Trading at almost 10X earnings and has a great dividend yield. Still a very cheap tech stock.

(A Top Pick May 3/16. Up 52%.) Feels the upgrade cycle is going to be a big cycle. They are building their service business really well. Trading at reasonable valuations. It is a big, big weight in the index, and there is a lot of money going into index funds, which is a positive. A very, very innovative company.

This has been in the middle of a great run. The tendency is for this to run up into a large product cycle, which is coming via the new iPhone. In the short term, it is probably a little overbought. He likes the Tech space as a whole. This company continues to dominate with its products. Would prefer to see it pull back to their moving average of $132-$135.

Apple (AAPL-Q) or Alphabet (GOOGL-Q)? He owns both, and both are great holdings. The amazing thing about this one is that they have about 1 billion basically captive users of their products. What makes that even more impressive is that there is a 93% loyalty rate. They produce a ton of cash. A 3^rd of their market cap is in cash. Trading well below the market multiple. A great core holding for any portfolio.

Although the stock has gone up considerably over 3-4 years, it is still not expensive, because the earnings growth has been there. Where can you buy a company that is trading at 15-16 times with the amount of cash on hand and this kind of a balance sheet. Dividend yield of 1.6%. (Analysts’ price target is $145.)

Companies go through cycles, and this one is on the downside of a cycle. ROC peaked in 2012, and ROC has been going down since that time. It is still at 15%, which is very respectable. Many companies would kill to have a 15% ROC. Valuation is OK, but doesn’t jump out as being super cheap. There are alternatives that you should be in. He would prefer something like Microsoft (MSFT-Q), Amazon (AMZN-Q), Facebook (FB-Q) or Google (GOOGL-Q). You aren’t going to get killed in this, but when there are alternatives that look so much more exciting, he would go with those.

An excellent company and the street thinks so as well. The Bear case on this is that 60% of its earnings is the iPhone, and what are they going to do next that is a real mover. The whole ecosystem is so powerful that if you own one Apple product, you own a bunch of them.