Apple Inc (AAPL)

On an emotional level, this company is absolutely amazing. It has also shown itself to have great quality control. However, it is ultimately a hardware company, and hardware companies eventually see their multiples shrink and contract. Right now operating margins are amazing in the +20% range. There are probably other companies out there you should own. You are looking in the rear-view mirror buying this at $118.

In the last couple of days this has just broken to a new recent high. Technicals are positive and the stock is outperforming the market. It has positive momentum and relative strength is positive. Seasonally, this does very well from the middle of October right through until the 1^st week in January.

Has been bullish on this for a long time. When it got down under $100, he was saying it was worth $140. It has come halfway back from under $100 to about $117, so there is still upside. This has had 130 billion downloads from the App Store, that is 20 for every human adult that is on earth.

(Top Pick Oct 9/15, Up 7.05%) Once you are on the IOS operating system you are hooked on it. You have close to a billion users that are hooked and now Apple are milking them for revenue. The iPhone 7 is doing fairly well. He thinks it is cheap and undervalued. What is there not to like?

There is some pretty immediate technical resistance at about $120. If it can get through there, it can maybe move back up again to its usual high at about 5.5X BV, $147. Right now it is halfway between its normal high of $147 and normal low of $92. Technically if it can break out here, you have another move ahead.

Got Stopped out last spring. He is finding their equipment is getting a bit confusing. They are just minor user things, but they will work it out. He likes their latest IOS update a little bit better than the old one.

Just launched the iPhone 7, which has done a lot better than people expected. They are augmenting that with a growing services business. The real iteration is going to be the iPhone 8, where they are going to enhance battery power and will be a much better product. Trading at a reasonable valuation of 12.5X. They are flush with cash and are going to do something with that cash.

He is in the camp that at best, it’s OK. A fair value and a hold right now. The iPhone 7 sales will be okay, but it is falling. It will show some economic sensitivity. They got a big boost from Samsung’s phone blowing up, but that is short lived.

She is a fan of it and you could be buying it here. It has a lot of upside to go. It is a product company, not a product cycle. They can move forward without Steve Jobs. It is a good buying opportunity. She is watching the rumour mills of what they are doing in the auto industry. She thinks there is certainly a lot of innovation to come out of Apple.

He is almost out, having been in and out three times. Their days of growth are almost done. This is the year when iPhone sales were lower than the previous year. It should not be viewed as a growth stock, but as a return of capital stock.

In order for this to work well as an investment, historically it has been necessary for there to be a lot of pent-up demand for phones. Some of the subsequent launches of phones since iPhone 6, has been that not so many phones have been “end-of-life”. Thinks there has been a boost in the short term because of the difficulty that Samsung has been having. He wouldn’t expect volumes to be very strong on this. He would wait for more pent-up demand.

To him, this has sort of gone ex-growth, not growing as quickly. IPhone 7 is not substantially different, but was incrementally different. He likes the stock because it is cheap. They have lots of cash and can put it to work with a higher dividend. Their services business is growing quite rapidly, so he can see better numbers on that side. Dividend yield of 1.97%.

This is a great company. However, it has the law of big numbers working against it. In order to make any kind of significant move, it has to have stellar introductions and things really have to be on a large scale to get it to go. If he is right on his view of the market, then this stock will be going up.

iPhone 7 is not a big step up from iPhone 6. This is still a hardware selling consumer technology company, which condemns the multiple to not much more than the low teens. Still has a good balance sheet and a lot of money. They need to rejuvenate the growth by coming out with a new revolutionary product.

Owned this for a very long time, but started souring on it from a user perspective. Still loves their product. Every time he gets a new iPhone upgrade, it wasn’t as exciting as the last one. He finds their iTunes, iPhoto’s, all of that software and services used to be the easiest thing he had ever used, but now finds it the hardest. From a user perspective, they have some major work to do. Doesn’t understand why they haven’t snapped up things like Spotify, Netflix, etc. Probably one of the safest stocks out there right now.