Another opportunity for AAPL buyers, like I wrote on 1-26-13 on this same thread, to wait till AAPL goes down to $400.00 then buy,(look it up). Buy AAPL at a close above $465.00 target at $545.00. Happy trading.
Now that AAPL has most likely put in a bottom, it would be advantageous for a trader to buy this stock, but buying at these current levels are very high risk. A trader of investor would be much better off to let AAPL pullback significantly before entering into a long-term investment into this stock. Buying around the $425 to $435 area would be ideal, but AAPL may not fall that low, if that doesn't happen, a trader can find another low risk entry point into this stock, but certainly not at current levels.
A lot of the proverbial brown matter. Check on YouTube the story of Guy Kawasaki and the 12 lessons he learned from Steve Jobs. Afterwards check that against what Apple has started to do with the iPhone, the Time Capsule and the Airport (competing on price and made them from plastic). Then check that the board is putting pressure on senior management for the next "game changer". Check that Tim Cooke is returning money to the shareholders - Steve Jobs never returned the money. The board (= money grabbers and penny pinchers) do not have a long term view this is why the above is happening. Apple long term = game over, they are turning in another "has been" company slowly but surely.
I only see <b>APPLE CASH MONEY</b>, and as I've planned for successive splits, there is no business like this commodity. You cannot and should not short because iTunes is a cash hoard cow machine that will never go away. Sitting at over $100 billion and you think that's anything to Icahn's size? Or anything those dumbasses at RIMM or the copyca- no stealycat SAMSUNG could ever do? This is a stupid thread that the OP nailed, and I'm way below $400 on my entry for over two years now. The only thing is money. Samsung has no Apps and stole Apple's technology and also has no iTunes store and never will. It's as commoditized as songwriting will ever get and that was probably the vision of Jobs before we had nonsense about it ever turning into a third rate foreign handset maker. iPhone forever! and Ever! I've already had the conversation with Steve 1000 years into the future with a model iPad practically identical in every way to today's model but with 3d holographic rendering on iGlass with interactive display for projection stereophonic headset iTV from the same body frame and design. No, anybody shorting is an idiot. Short term even I take positions against the NASDAQ100 sometimes, as there certainly are companies that won't be there , but GOOG, MSFT, AAPL will always be I'm convinced and if you don't think so there's something wrong with a fundamental viewpoint if you have to lucid nightdream that far ahead to wonder if you really are thinking if it's still possible to make $1 million from $10k in Apple and the truth is that it is that scalable due to the software IT infrastructure of entertainment filesharing that has been perfectly monetized by them and always will be. They will win these fights about who came up with the technology, because Apple's engineers did, and there's a lot of who's whoing and who meing that won't just get the attention of the American regulator when they shut down the cop-steal-ycatting that's going on in the space especially concerning the hardware retina display and these specific gadgets I may be the only visionary to have seen knowing what they were even if they were seen in nightdream semi-future-conscious state. I should also disclose presently long significant NQ and NASDAQ100 derivative positions but won't disclose my plans for exits.
So that Mr. Icahn will have an educated amount to suggest for a stock buyback, the most important issue is to make the right suggestion for the size of it. That, of course, comes from understanding Warren Buffett. Warren Buffett's secret to producing value corresponds to the exact theory of economic profit that is found in measuring the leveraging that can be done by adding to a company's treasury stock. The amount that will do that enables his magic formula for value to produce $1 of profit per dollar expended in the open market in a buyback. If Apple earns $50 billion per quarter conservatively forever, then that is $200 billion per year. The $200 billion to earn $1 for $1 requires a share increase of 20% when the company has a market cap around a half trillion. So at $500 billion, the sales at $200 billion requires a 40% yield on revenue, and so we can call that earnings for a long time in the future, such that in order for Apple to earn $1 from it's buyback and leverage that $200 billion so that it doubles even if it only earns $100 billion in revenue that size when we assume the doubling means half of $100 billion is required to produce a $1 for $1 return to both shareholders and the company's retained earnings. Thus, $50 billion is the correct amount to recommend for a buyback.