My guess is yes when you factor in the countries where the growth prospects are still large, the upgrade cycles, the brand name 'love', the coming 'TV', the profits from media, the notebook puters', etc. At any rate, my approach with them is 'dumb' .... keep buying the dip (though few recently) in smallish quantities and sell into strength. Repeat as often as possible, never building up too large of an inventory. Just keep doing it until it stops working. IMO, a lot of traders are over-reliant on technicals and I think that can work to my advantage with my approach which is to scale in slowly, after weakness and then sell into strength. I usually do this with ETF's but AAPL is an exception.
I don't know a lot about technicals but if you look at AAPL as a series of potential cashflows and compare it to other tech companies. Would you rather own AAPL at 14 PE or SPX as 14 PE? AAPL has a ton of cash so the real PE is lower (probably 20%) and have the head room to grow in emerging markets, etc. But they are also the 800 pound gorilla in a very fickle business. I like your strategy buying the dips and selling the rally.
Yes, buying the dip -- using indexes -- usually eventually works if you use some discretion and avoid buying during 'obvious' distribution and downtrend days/periods, managing your risk with position size and patience, assuming you have enough capital and don't have to be frenetically generating big profits every day. That's what I've learned for me anyway. And re AAPL Vs. the SPY, probably a pretty 'safe' trade after a significant market pullback and when AAPL will undoubtedly sell off more heavily than the SPY, is a pairs trade ... long AAPL (assuming its prospects haven't changed) and short the SPY or ES.
As much as I am not a fan of Apple's products (I prefer customization over ease of use), it is hard to deny how strong of a company they are and will be in the foreseeable future. Their products are very popular and people tend to buy newer versions even when they don't need them. The company is doing this well now and they haven't even started to enter into a lot of the developing nations. The idea of Apple having a crash is just plain absurd and the stock is not going back to $100-$200 levels anytime soon. That doesn't mean that the stock wouldn't' take a steep dip with the rest of the market if more global economic issues come up. When Apple finally does come back to earth it will most likely be a slow and drawn out process like Microsoft, where their products stop being the most innovative and they become eclipsed by another newer, younger and more innovative company. The writing is already on the wall, as the lawsuits have recently started to fly at other tablet and handset makers. Typically a company starts suing when they feel threatened. However Apple is not going to lose its hold on the market overnight, it most likely will take years.
What will happen is that 10 years from now, AAPL will still be a 500 stock while the SP500 is touching 2000.
02-11-12 bwolinsky states: 'This is a lie.You don't make a "Apple crash" call if you're not saying you shouldn't be in it or go short.' bwolinsky, Like Nine_Ender you also conflate TA analysis with trading. This demonstrates intentional malicious conduct and/or appalling ignorance by yourself. I made no AAPL trade recommendation - short or long. It will crash eventually but there is no sell signal yet. BTW I didn't know you're a stockbroker like bhardy307. Are your clients aware of how you conduct yourself on public forums ? There seem to be a few brokers on ET with a long only bias and no TA knowledge. Not a good recipe in a long term bear market. And we all know how brokers earn money - via sales commission. Not trading... [disclosure as per http://stockmarket618.wordpress.com/2012/02/10/aapl-parabolic-irrational-exuberance/ - no AAPL position held]