This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!
Hoping you're still checking this thread...I'm just curious how you're finding the market for Zoetis. Have you been able to easily get shares of the IPO or is it in high demand through retail brokerages? -disclaimer: I work for Pfizer and will be part of the Zoetis spin-off. Basically, I get the internal buzz, but I know that can be clouded by optimism, and I'm curious what a non-connected party is seeing.
![[icon]](/data/avatars/m/5/5167.jpg?1660313464){kind=avatar}
LOL...I'm actually hoping it gets to a point where I can justify adding some to my portfolio. (I know the stock is still a good deal by the numbers, I'm more concerned about the market "emotion" and whether Apple will be able to weather a downtick in consumer love.) If I see them start to turn around, I'm probably jumping on board for some shares.
Not trying to time the bottom. Rather, making sure there IS a bottom first.
Ground breaking analysis right here, folks.
The selloff is probably over for now. The multiple is now being reset on the street and the street is digesting this.I will still maintain a buy at these levels. Hell I thought 530 was cheap. Felt 505 was a key support level which was broken. But long term.....this company is a steal at this price for a patient long term investor. Some believe it...some don't. But over the course of this year they will have some good things to catalyst a price pop to over 600 again IMO. I still feel 700 will be attainable again one day. They have more innovation in that think tank contrary to popular belief and pure speculation based on nothing. The competition that Samsung is bringing to the table is very real and actually very good for Apple as a company long term. That will breed more inovation IMO. China is a major runway for Apples future growth. When (and I say when and this is based on nothing more than a strong intuition that they are working hard on that deal and will roll out lower tier I-Phones for the emergiging markets over the next 2 years) they ink a deal with China Mobile......look out. And the tablet market is in it's infancy and the I-Pad and the Mini are IMO the clear class of the space.Time will tell.If your going to try and trade Apple.....good luck. It is not an easy raquet trying to trade stocks.
I don't agree with some of your assertions, but the bold strikes me as completely off base. The Surface alone blows iPad out of the water.
Hey I am going on sales. Apple is selling I-Pads by the boatload and had an insane year over year increase from 11-12.I am not a techkie at all. Just looking at a companies ability to give a return on capital. Apple has done that really well for a lot of investors.
It also completely ignores that users with a Droid phone have a significant motivation to get a Droid tablet. Apple's competetive advantage is its balance sheet. It hasn't cornered the market on any technology.
Ah ok, that makes more sense. I have an iPad too, but it feels clearly inferior to the Surface and other Win8 tablets. I just don't buy that Apple will innovate much without Jobs in either product line. They seem to be standing still. Seeing commercials where they are touting new features other phones have had for years is a bit of a red flag to me, like when a certain industry goes on a buying spree for stadium naming rights.
I would watch it closely at $400.Somight be too soon?
This is the catch-22 the market places on AAPL. If Apple loses market share to the flood of cheaper devices, the market panics and AAPL falls. Yet if Apple launches devices at lower price points to gain market share, the market panics over "reduced margins" and AAPL falls. And god forbid Apple (or a third party retailer) cuts prices, that not only reduces margins but also causes a market panic over "failing consumer demand"... and AAPL falls.And just a nitpick: Apple has never been or wanted to be a "Rolls Royce", which is a brand only accessible to the very top 1% of the population. Apple has historically been more akin to a BMW or Audi; brands that represent higher-end style and engineering but is still within reach of a high percentage of consumers. They may refuse to compete for the bottom "value" shopper (where there is very little profit), but they are certainly not limiting themselves to only the top 1% either. Continuing to sell the iPhone 4/4S and the iPad Mini are recent examples of Apple competing at those lower tiers.
I agree that those car brands are better analogies (I almost used BMW but went w/RR simply because I thought "the Rolls Royce of _______" was more of a common phrase).Regardless, great points. Certainly seems like a catch-22. The one thing I'd say is that with today's economy I don't think it's just the 'value' shoppers that they're pricing themselves away from, but also a good chunk of the 'middle' now as well.'goonsquad said:
They can simply keep their "outdated" models on the market longer (like they are now). There's not a noticeably large upgrade from 4 to 5, so they can leave their iPhone4 out on the market and lower the price without people flipping out because that's what happens with "outdated" devices. Problem is, for those paying attention, it highlights the fact that Apple isn't really providing noticeable upgrades from one version to the next.'Frankbot said:
Despite introducing the 4 and the mini, they are still losing market share. I wouldn't say they are the clear leaders in the tablet sector. They used to have 100% as they basically created it, but their insistence on maintaining high margins is killing the stranglehold they had with the iPad innovation.
Not only that, but it seems to me they are going the wrong direction...http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57566484-37/apples-128gb-ipad-heres-how-much-the-bump-really-costs/
Apple shipped a total of 22.9 million iPads last quarter. In second place, Samsung shipped 8 million tablets (Android + Win8 combined). By any sane definition, that's a "clear leader".This idea of market share "falling" as a sign of trouble for Apple is silly. The thing is, the markets for smart phones and tablets are still expanding. This isn't a zero sum game. Apple's iPad sales grew almost 50% y-o-y, even though their "market share" fell. There is still plenty of room to grow.
I agree there is plenty of room to grow, it's just that other tablet manufacturers appear to be growing faster and Apple's marketshare trajectory is downward. You can call it silly if you want, I doubt one of Apple's goals was to reduce market share.
The problem is that it is impossible for any company to disrupt a new market every three years, yet that is expectation placed on Apple (and only Apple). In truth, Apple is doing exactly what they have always done, even throughout the Jobs era: create a market-defining disruption, and then refine their products year after year. Innovate and then iterate, iterate, iterate. Every Apple product has followed this path: Mac, iMac, Mac OS, iPhone, iPad. The expectation that they now need to re-disrupt these markets every two years is completely unreasonable and borderline insanity.
I agree. But that's how they got their meteoric rise. So what's the sustaining strategy? Lower prices or lux positioning?
Does that growth reflect the combined Ipad and Mini numbers? IIRC, last quarter, the bulk of tablet sales came from their Mini. There is no way to know what those sales would have been like without the Mini. The Mini could be seen as a value/budget/less-premium item in the Apple product line and - surprise! - consumers flocked to it. What is the takeaway from that for investors and Tim Cook alike?
I've noticed the same thing. They have a whole TV campaign revolving around lowering background noise or something on the iPhone? That seems like a GIANT red flag to me.'Slapdash said:
Yes, those numbers are combined. Apple doesn't break down sales numbers by model so we have no way of know what percentage of iPads were the Mini. We do know that Cook said they "couldn't make the Mini fast enough", so they obviously sold very well. Margins were down across the board, so the lower cost Mini obviously had some effect but I don't think you can safely say that the bulk of iPad sales were the Mini. It launched a month into the quarter and manufacturing ramp up usually takes time. I do expect the Mini to outsell the full-size iPad moving forward.One way to look at the Mini is that it is a threat to cannibalize full-size iPad sales. The other way to see it is that the Mini opens Apple up to a larger potential market. I think the truth is in the middle. At the end of the day, as Tim Cook said: Apple can't fear cannibalizing their own products because if they don't do it someone else will. It's a balancing act to be sure.
that's basically their m.o. occasional innovation and new category development with mostly ho-hum features and slick marketing filling the gaps
I haven't thought things that they specifically marketed around in the past were "ho-hum." That was my point.
Thats an interesting perspective - I wonder how Jobs would have attacked the same problem. I've never known Apple to focus on consumer demand as much as they are now. It seems that Apple would always put out a product and tell/market their story that this is the only way this product should be - anyone else is telling you differently does not know what they are talking about. I'd love to know how Jobs felt about a smaller iPad.I mean, they exploited an entire segment (tablets) when nobody was demanding such a product, nobody thought they needed/wanted such a product. The essentially proactively told the market what the market needed - instead of reacting to the market and competitors.Iphone was another example where someone at Apple had an idea and built it before there was really any consumer demand.If I was still a shareholder, I would be worried that they are becoming more like their competitors - and playing catch-up to consumer demand, rather than creating consumer demand. The value is in creating demand, not chasing demand - at that point almost all competitors are on equal footing, and then its just a race to the lowest price point (lowest margins) - and that hurts profits.
This is a much better and clearer way of saying what I was trying to say. For Jobs, engineering, software and design came above market research.
"He would flip on something so fast that you would forget that he was the one taking the 180 degree polar [opposite] position the day before. I saw it daily. This is a gift, because things do change, and it takes courage to change. It takes courage to say, ‘I was wrong.’ I think he had that."-Apple CEO Tim Cook about Steve JobsWhat would Steve Jobs think of the Mini? He once said that he wasn't interested in making a smaller iPad because the 7" form factor didn't provide a good user experience. Of course, he also once stated that there was no reason to include video playback on an iPod because no one wanted to watch a movie on such a small screen. And that 3.5" was the ideal size screen for a phone. And that he wouldn't release an iOS SDK; all third party apps would be HTML apps.
Tomorrow.I personally think it is a great investment. I like the idea because they are the largest player in the animal health industry especially since they have a foot in both livestock and pet care. Just looks hard for it not to do well. Then again I have been wrong before.
Not only that but the "real" Microsoft Surface(the pro) is about to be released in about a week. This won't be some new mobile OS that needs special apps, it will be running full windows 8 that already has a mountain of apps waiting. The starting price of $899 was supposed to scare people away(which I never bought anyway since I view it as a direct competitor to ultrabooks as well as tablets) but even that price was recently eclipsed by the high end ipad.
So does Apple have anything else in the hopper?
We don't "obviously" know anything. We just know what the CEO of a company said about his company. From an investing perspective, you take that with a grain of salt at best. The only thing we actually know is reported in the financials like the fact margins were down across the board. In a confidence market, people don't really look at the "why" part. Itchy trigger fingers make people pull out too quick and jump in too quick. You have a stake in the company and it's really clouded your perception imo.
Better? 
