Apple Inc (AAPL)

He lightened a bit last year when it ran up. He believes in the story long term. They don’t have as much of a recurring revenue model as he would like. The value is in the brand name. iTunes shows how they are moving to more of a service model. He is buying it in here, however.

If a stock is above the 200 day and it is rising, the trend is up. It is below then the trend is down. APPL-O had three growth periods. ’06 to ’08 then ’09 until ’12 and then ’13 to just before it collapsed. He thinks the growth is over. The easy money has been picked.

It is a 15% better buy today than it was a few months ago. Has suffered a mini correction. It has a long history of going up and then going down, and then going back up again. He thinks a lot of the company. They had an excellent last quarter. It has tremendous potential of products coming down the road. They don't need to have a hit on every product. He thinks it is a veryimpressive company. At $115 it is a very reasonable buy.

Just reported quarterly results and the stock dropped. Has been wrong on this for years and had thought the tide would turn a lot earlier. Technology is a very, very difficult sphere. With many companies, what appears to be leading-edge technology, after while is no longer. He has been waiting for when this company starts to have some difficulty with their technology perhaps, and saturates the marketplace. At some point he thinks it could really get hammered. They are clear leaders in their field. Have taken on debt, and when you have as much money as they do, why do that? He would be wary of buying this.

(A Top Pick July 10/14. Up 29.1%.) Took some money off the table when it got up to the high $122’s. They are selling more of their iPhones, their market share is going up, and selling more Mac’s in a declining PC environment. Once they get people to buy an iPhone, they will buy another one. Trading at a very good valuation level. Have lots of cash.

Reported revenue growth of 33% year-over-year and earnings growth of over 45% which slightly exceeded expectations that were posted on the street, and yet the market still sold off. This is a lesson to march to your own drummer as opposed to what the market might be telling you at any given point in time. Their new watch to him is more of a sensory device, a beginning of a new category, that is extremely exciting. People who get caught up in the idea that it is a watch are missing the point. This is going more into an incredibly important social device. It is going to have implications from a social standpoint and a medical standpoint. Stock is not expensive and this is one of the fastest-growing companies that he knows of. It has innovation, capital distribution through dividends and stock buybacks, and it has China. China now represents about a quarter of their total revenues.

Down 7% in after-hours, but he is a shareholder, not a trader. Traders are speculating on what earnings are going to be, but he sees a company whose revenues are up 30% year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter. Profits are growing and guidance looks pretty good. It is all about fundamentals. Stripping out the cash, he thinks they are guiding for over $9 a share in earnings. Would be buying more of this tomorrow if he already didn’t own so much. He tries to focus on the long-term on things he wants to own for 5 years. This stock is cheap.

(A Top Pick April 29/15. Up 53.45%.) Had a meaningful uptick in earnings as they launched the iPhone 6, and the bigger screens took hold and began to take a domineering position in the high priced smart phone category. Still inexpensive relative to the markets.

Look for them to launch a new Apple TV box this fall. They are putting all their content relationships together today, which will be another new category. The iWatch hasn’t had big progress yet, but he expects it will. Also, thinks the new iPhone cycle will continue to grow.

At 13X earnings, even before you strip out the cash, you can buy this today and not be concerned about where the stock is going to be 2 or 3 years from now.

Historically people want to buy this right around the end of the year, and this is because people want to buy Apple products at around Christmas. Technically, over the last 8 months or so, it has been in a trading range and there is no real strong technical reason to become involved yet. You may want to wait until closer to October when seasonality clicks in.

(A Top Pick July 24/14. Up 25.91%.) This is getting caught up in what is going on in the market. There are very clearly rising moving averages. Stock has been basically trading in a range of $120-$134. Earnings are coming up and we are going to get a clearer picture there. Technically this is not broken at all.

Not an expensive stock, cash flow almost 10%, dividends are around 1.6. Iphone is generating a lot of their revenue. A lot harder to innovate in the future, compared to the ipad, and iphone. Doesn't think the watch is going to happen at all.

A perfect picture of a quantitative stock. It scores really well on price momentum, valuation and in the top 2% of the S&P 500 on value. Trading at 8X EBITDA and 15X PE. This is a company with 38% ROE, and yet trades at a lower multiple than the broad market. One of the best balance sheets you could possibly find. They have a lot of options in buying back stocks.

The big growth spurt was from 2006 to 2009, followed by a growth spurt in 2009-2011 and another one from 2013-2015. That is 3 growth spurts and this stock is in the 3^rd phase. A lot of money was made in the 1^st spurt, but not as much in the 2^nd and even less in the 3^rd. He thinks growth in this company is going to slow down. Most of the easy money has been made. He wouldn’t get too excited about this.