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Mexico is grand. Apple has not yet behaved like I predicted and In haven not read the earnings press releases yet and may not till we get home on the 29th. Hope ya'll are having fun and making money.
How about that gold. May have to log in for long enough to take some profits there :).
Adios amigos
iPodsand Macs and tigers oh my
I think the next period of Apple history will highlight the ascendency of the Macintosh a brighter star in the Apple galaxy.
I continue to think that being able to run Windows on Macintoshes, while not without risks, will bring many new customers to Mac computers. I think that the ability to run Windows on Mac will bring more Macintosh computers into the business world, the academic world, the consumer world, the technical/scientific world. It opens up more markets to Apple more rapidly than the adoption of OS X without the ability to run Windows unencumbered by Virtual PC and its mates of Motorola/IBM chip days.
I am not sure when these increases in Mac sales will show up, or how significant they will be, but - that hypothesis along with what I would call the likelihood of entering new consumer markets (iPhones etc...) means that I will be doing some buying on dips - and I am waiting for and anticipating prices lower than we might imagine now.
Anyone else think it could go down 10-20% on disappointing earnings and lukewarm guidance? While I do not have a crystal ball, I think the odds of disappointing earnings and soft guidance are higher than 50-50.
The low to mid $50's range might be a good target area for a relatively low-risk buy.
Will have to think some about pre-earnings puts - but may not have access to a net-connected computer until Wednesday afternoon.
Tempest - teapot. em.
Bootz: regardless of what happens with iPods, iBooks have gotta suck wind this past quarter.
Merrill cuts iPod estimates
Merrill Lynch analyst Richard Farmer today lowered his iPod shipment estimates for Apple’s March quarter from 10.1 million to 8.8 million units. Based on monthly data from NPD Techworld, Farmer said he believes that March shipment numbers, to be released on April 19, will be below both January and February figures. Farmer’s 2006 iPod estimate falls from 53 million to 47 million units. Shaw Wu of American Technology Research said he also expects Apple to report iPod sales of 8.8 million units, while Bear Sterns analyst Andrew Neff said he expects Apple to ship 10.5 million iPods during the quarter.
http://ilounge.com/index.php/news/comments/merrill-lynch-cuts-ipod-estimates/
OT: sell that sucker before vacation
Nope, I doubled my position this morning at an average cost of 6.95. Cost basis 5.08 now. There is an informative article on the sucker here:
http://www.dobmagazine.nickles.com/columns/pulse.asp?article=magazine/columns/060410/MAG_COL2006_AA0...
OT: CWPC did all right also :). em.
spitsong: re: AAPL
Interesting. Wouldn't be surprising to see it go up some before earnings. I am not doing any earnings play. I am holding AAPL that amounts to about 3 1/2% of our porfolios. The inn we'll be staying at outside of Guadalajara has a net-connected workstation available to guests, and I plan to look at the earnings PR on the evening of the 19th and at how the stock is doing on the 20th. Do not know if I will do anything other than look, but....I may add.
I figure I could be taking the AAPL position up to somewhere between 25% and 50% of the IRAs by late summer / early fall, unless there are some surprises along the way - most in shares, but some in calls as well.
copper miners - I agree
made 22% on a TGB trade in the past week.
thanks chary, sold some more just now - up to 75% cash now.
What a year it has been.
I am 65% cash as of this morning and getting ready to go on vacation for a couple of weeks. Have my best quarter even under my belt and am looking forward to some travel and relaxation.
How are you silent guys doing?
Sold rest of trading shares @ 68.43 and also
sold TGB. 65% cash now and the portfolio is ready for me to go on vacation.
Seems the Disney move
and others like it are an interesting dimension to the content v. distribution discussion. Do those reign together, or is one king? :).
They have announced Apple Remote Desktop 3 - now for Intel Macs.
OT: decompression chamber.
There is no doubt that gold will be volatile. It is not a bubble, in my opinion. We could easily see a 10% correction at some point, and that point could be as early as next week - or not
I basically use a similar strategy as I do with AAPL. I hold a core and trade beyond that. Same with some base metals. I am ~ 50% cash now and await bargains.
OT: Spot gold broke through $600 this evening, sitting at $601.30 at this moment
pple lost all "we're about the end user" credibility
Did with you, apparently. Not sure you are empowered to speak for all end-users, just to state the obvious :).
OT commodities
So, the cats woke me up early and here is what I found while waiting for them to come in
Gold, up $8, copper up about 6.5 cents a pound...where, here is the rest of it
http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/commodities/cfutures.html
Could not disagree more.
The writer was probably right, then :)
Ultimately, Apple isn't about supporting Windows—it's about trying to steal customers from Windows.
From Newsweek
...Schiller says Boot Camp is for "switchers" from Windows to Mac who need one or two Windows programs that don't have a Mac equivalent. For others, he says, it will be a comforting "safety net" in case there's a need to run a PC program.
That makes sense, but there's some gamesmanship here as well. Apple has no pretensions of joining the Win world—Schiller insists that the company will never be a formal licensee of Windows, so don't expect the next Mac OS, Leopard, to come with a copy of XP or its successor, Vista. Instead, Apple may be sending a not so subtle message that a direct comparison of the competing systems will leave no doubts concerning which is superior—or safer. When describing the precautions one must take when using Windows, Apple's attitude is similar to a hotel concierge providing an insistent guest with directions to a nightclub in a thoroughly disreputable neighborhood. "When you load Windows you're taking on the risk that entails," Schiller warns, citing the epidemiological woes of the Microsoft world. "There are a lot more security threats than the Mac has ever seen."
Microsoft's response to Boot Camp is telling. You would think there would be celebrating in Redmond—after all, customers who try it must bring their own $199 full-install version of Windows XP to the party. But aside from a welcome statement attributed to a Windows apparatchik, Microsoft execs are refusing to go on the record about this historic development—an indication that this disruptive development may be anything but welcome.
Ultimately, Apple isn't about supporting Windows—it's about trying to steal customers from Windows. The company known for iPod now knows what it's like to imbibe the sweet wine of high market share, and would love a taste of that for its flagship operating system (Macs currently comprise about 4 percent of the PC market). "The thing we market is our innovation and their lack of innovation," says Schiller of that other realm. "At the end of the day there's a place for PC makers who are innovative. And there's a place for people who make boring boxes for the corporate world." Such familiar sniping should assure you that not everything in techland has gone topsy-turvy. Now excuse me while I book my ski trip in hell.
All of the article is at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12227769/site/newsweek/
yofal,
I had tried that in Firefox, and downloading the linked file was not an option. I just tried it in Safari, and it worked. Guess I will have to use Safari a bit more.
Thanks
Downloading podcasts in browser window
I can't seem to do it. In both Safari and firefox, whenever I click a download podcast link, it opens in the browser window in Quicktime. I have gone to the preferences in both those browsers and have not found anything that changes that behavior.
So, I know I am not the brightest bulb on the chandelier, but....can somehow tell me how to download a cast instead of merely listening to it.
OT: Financial Sense New Hour with Jim Puplava
http://www.financialsense.com/
There is a program here with Jim Puplava as host that I listen to most weeks. The first hour has some general market commentary, a couple of technical analysts talking about the general market indices, some talk of gold and commodities etc...
The second hour this week is Dr. Bob Froehlich of Scudder Investments, talking about his book Investment Megatrends.
This does not drive my investments, but it is something I listen to regularly - sometimes it confirms something I have done, it always give me food for thought.
Ron
niche market, tomm
right? :).
Why heck no, I won't take the pledge
I've been looking forward to this ever since the days of CHRP :).
It is not much of a change. I have never posted most of my non-AAPL trades. Typically, I have posted the ticker symbols of some of the stocks I am holding, and I will still do that from time to time.
As an Apple board, the AAPL trades are the most relevant for posting here.
Ron, preparing for vacation
OT: I'm going to post this and then I am going to stop posting most, if not all, of my non-AAPL trades. I will occasionally post some OT thoughts, but not all of my trades.
I sold AUY this morning for 10.66 v. a 9.50 entry earlier in April
I sold Jan 27.50 GG calls for 5.99 v. a 4.00 entry in late March
I sold 40% of my GPXM position, covering the cost of the rest plus a profit. I still like GPXM, but the position had gotten huge and now some would say I am playing with house money. Interesting concept that - seems like it could cause one to be overly aggressive. It is not house money, it is my money :).
I think this is a short-term correction in gold and it is going higher. I am leaving on vacation in a week and I will be heavier cash while away.
Sold 1/2 trading shares @70.30 vs. 62.95 entry. eom.
Spike in XP sales
win - win or win-mac :)
lango, it was not a denunciation
And you know it. I do not have any idea why you mischaracterized it like that. I define an inflection point as a turning point. A quarter's dip - particularly in a quarter when a dip in consumer electronics is the usual, is no inflection point. Saying it is as fact does not make it so, in my opinion. It is certainly no more than a hypothesis - one that is subject to confirmation or lack thereof by data. You may be right, but it is certainly too early to know that - by 9 months or so.
And I certainly yield to you on the certainty thing and on several other things. I have no need or desire to be better than you on those counts. I'll settle for the immodesty award.
And it would have been polite to have acknowledged the compliments.
lango
Your post was good and educational and a worthy contribution to the community here. The analyst I cited, and I do not recall who it was, specifically said he was included an attach rate. It may be different than the one you used.
As far as playing this quarter, I have been clear about my plans, which is more than I can say for you. I asked you about how you planned to play a certain Apple quarter once and you said you were not at liberty to say. I think I pretty much left it at that, maybe with one retort.
You state the inflection point as a fact, when it is a hypothesis, one that will not be proved or disproved with one quarter's results. You know that
In fact, one firm today said they were comfortable with their 10.5 million Pod estimate, even though it was above the downward revisions proffered by other firms.
No matter to me, it is more risk than I care to take on in a couple of weeks. The core position will stay. The trading shares I bought at $62.95 will be gone. Does not take more than a few year's experience to have a pretty good feel about how to trade AAPL with a pretty good batting average. There will be some strikeouts, goddess knows I have had some of those, but.....
I am not arrogant enought to suggest that everyone follow what I do, but I have experienced some pretty good success, if I may be so immodest as to mention that.
Sounds like his attach rate was higher than yours.
on the bigger than winPod - you are not always such a literalist. I know cause I have a memory of your occasional post-earnings exuberance in chat locations.
It is going to be huge.
.24 in earnings - yeah, that is the same one I saw. em
re: a few more thoughts on BootCamp
Bigger than winPod if that is half-right. I read somewhere the other day an estimate of what each percentage point of computer market share gain meant for Apple in terms of revenues and earnings. They were pretty big numbers. Assuming that particular analyst was right, wowzers.
I just put it down in the mental plus column, gave it considerable weight but do not remember the exact numbers
Bootz, holding onto Apple
Split it out. Decide what size core investment you want. Sell everything else. Hold onto to the core no matter what - won't hurt as much during downturns, will be able to benefit from surprise news.
OT: I am holding Jan GG 27.50's and will continue doing so. em.
Apple retail contacts
Does anyone have anybody they can call or talk to re: uptick in Intel Macs since the announcement? That could be good to know.
<<Bush said that he'd fire the leaker.>>
But the leak of Plame's name happened.....well, here is a snippet from cnn.com
Libby says he needs extensive classified files from the government to demonstrate that Plame's CIA connection was a peripheral matter that he never focused on, and that the role of Wilson's wife was a small piece in a building public controversy over the failure to find WMD in Iraq.
Fitzgerald said in the new court filing that Libby's requests for information go too far and the prosecutor cited Libby's own statements to investigators in an attempt to limit the amount of information the government must turn over to Cheney's former chief of staff for his criminal defense.
According to Miller's grand jury testimony, Libby told her about Plame's CIA status in the July 8, 2003 conversation that took place shortly after the White House aide -- according to the new court filing -- was authorized by Bush through Cheney to disclose sensitive intelligence about Iraq and WMD contained in a National Intelligence Estimate.
Metaphorically speaking
about my portfolio this morning - to paraphrase Dizzy Dean announcing baseball during WW II, when there was certain information that they could not provide:
I can't tell ya what weather is doing, but that ain't sweat the players are wiping off their faces.
Bill Palmers's take
talk about immodest *grin*