As a long term hold. Who knows what the NDX will do in the current turmoil, but that and ONLY that is the reason aapl is trading where it is. Not dropping sales or margins or anything at all to do with the company (fundies only getting better and better). Apple is simply a victim of the market as a whole. I think it would be a great long term play.
An asteroid could also hit Cupertino, CA destroying all things Apple. They never miss. They always beat and guide low.
Long-term they are fine. However, right now the consumer is scared out of their mind. Discretionary purchases - such as Ipods, Iphones, music and computers - are right in the firing line of recession retrenchment. The definition of a conservative investment is where everything can go wrong and you still won't lose money. Apple isn't yet priced that conservatively. I would want to see them have a miss, and the stock get hammered, with the price going down to a conservative multiple of recession earnings. Then you can buy because short of another depression, the stock can't really lose in the long-run.
Fair points. It comes down to how much pain you can handle via the crazy NDX these days. It also makes sense that Apple's sales should slow down via recession. It just doesn't seem like it's happening...yet. The iphone 3g was released in early July I believe, and they are STILL selling out. Also the sales of macs and ipods (so far) show no signs of slowing. Once again I'm not saying they won't, I just love the stock at this price. Maybe some leaps are in order.
I don't know anything about ebay. Nor doesn't what people said about ebay have any affect on what I think about apple.
Whats to like about aapl here? Overall market is in complete turmoil, stock was down 7% and probably going to test 120, problems with the iphone, if something happened to Jobs the stock would get cut in half.
The difference is that Ebay's problems are intrinsic and long-term. Apple's potential problems are external and short-term (will stop once the recession ends). Thus Apple's decline will be a buying opportunity, whereas Ebay could go down and *stay down*.