Apple Inc (AAPL)

Thinks they are going to have a spectacular quarter this time. Have had the iPhone 5S for the whole quarter. Sales have been going tremendously well starting from the very 1^st weekend. He feels this is the #1 stock in his portfolio in terms of waiting and risk/reward profile.

This is a growing pie as smart phones, through the end of the decade, are projected to grow at an annual rate of 15%, which is pretty rapid growth. There is lots of room for good quality providers. This company satisfies the high end of that group. Margins are being maintained. The big knock is that there is no innovation, but he doesn’t care about the leapfrog process. They’re going to do fine with support revenue and cash flow growth. The real innovation is new products. They have said that the latter part of this year and 2014 are going to be a time when we are going to see a lot of new products.

Obviously a great company and not an expensive stock from most valuation metrics. His issue is that a lot of their margins come from the iPhone and people can be very fickle about these types of products. It will be hard for them to make massive leaps in their phones. Expect that margins will come down on iPhones. Expect you won’t see much on the stock push but will probably see more dividends and shareholder friendly stuff.

Still the premier brand that is out there as it relates to iPads and iPhones. They can continue to push that brand further. Investors are just going to have to get used to when they ramp up products, the R&D costs that go into the building out of these devices, margins are going down. Not overly expensive. Well managed company. Expects there will be continued product innovation from them, such as a watch, TV, etc. Thinks it could get close to the $600 mark.

He had a big run and his experience is that consumer products like this take a big run and then roll over and die. So now he feels it is an on-going battle of whether they will make the quarter or not.

Cheap on statistical measures. The problem with Apple was “what have you done for me lately”. After the iPhone and the iPad, you need something enormous and game changing. Stock price chart is starting to look like a lower high and lower low. Once you get to be the biggest company in the world, you can’t keep growing like you had. It will be difficult for them to do as well as they have over the last 5 years. Turning into a value stock with a decent dividend yield and stock buybacks. Longer-term it will be difficult for them unless they come up with a new wonderful game changer.

He is one of the few people that have been a bear on this stock for a long time. Over the last 3 years, the stock has effectively tripled in revenues so investors have seen a substantial run up in the shares. As a consequence, it has accumulated a ton of capital and is finally returning some of that to shareholders. He questions how you can maintain that kind of momentum. As momentum slowed, institutional investors have sold down. Feels the stock has to go lower before it is really attractive.

Trades at a .68 peg ratio. They have a lot of cash on hand. Seems they are willing to make cheaper phones. Trying to copy what others in the world are doing.

Hasn’t added to his holdings in quite a while. Has some growth issues and margins are probably not sustainable at current levels, but it is so dominant in the industry. You look at what the tablet market is doing to the PC market and that erosion continues. Thinks it is still well-positioned.

(A Top Pick Oct 29/12. 0% Return.) Bull Put Spread. Sold Feb 600 Puts @ $44 and bought Feb 550 Puts @ $22.20. These expired worthless. He was trying to take a bullish position on Apple.

Emotions have taken over. Disconnected from reality. Generating 40 billion in free cash flow. There is more value than the market is ascribing to this stock. We could see it go back to $600. For the next two to three years they are fine.

All the companies in this group are dealing with consumer preferences. She likes the whole smart phone trend. It is tough to bet on one specific company to be the winner. She plays it through QCOM.

Apple (AAPL-Q) versus Google (GOOG-Q)? Thinks you can own both of these. Both are good companies. This one is a battleground stock. They are still the premier player in the space but margins are going to continue to go lower over time as they continue to introduce new products. There is probably a better entry point in the $350 range.

(Market Call Minute.) Reaction to the new phones is fairly disappointing. The difficulty is what to do when you are the biggest company globally. Difficult to see them coming up with any more than incremental changes. If you own, take advantage of the rebound.

Apple (AAPL-Q) or Facebook (FB-Q)? He doesn’t like either one of these. Apple is a great company and has great products, but the stock has fallen so much that investors are selling Short. To drive the revenues higher, they have to come up with a fundamentally new product.