Apple Inc (AAPL)

[Tex]

re weak hands

How many strong hands here sat through dizzying tumbles in AAPL over the past 10 years?

Actually, over the last 10 years, we're just talking about AAPL since the NeXT purchase. That's not that long. I've been in that long. While I've added and subtracted from my position some, I've always been in and I've always been bullish on the future of the company.

Go back much further, and you get pre-Unix time (before it was clear Apple's future was tied to Unix operating systems), and I wouldn't have given the company the time of day. Folks easily scared out of their positions -- people lacking confidence in their investment decisions, or who were never investors but either speculators (whether technical traders or some other species of short-term marketeer) -- aren't the strong hands that form a base for the shares' price. Speculators can certainly increase the slope of share price moves as they rush in or out, but they don't do much for the long-term price.

What a concept - I find it odd that many investors who choose to manage risk by limiting the amount of time they are willing to hold AAPL and/or by the amount of AAPL they are willing to hold are referred to as weak hands.

The most money I left on the table was by having removed money from investments that hadn't really become "sell" stories yet. The risk isn't [i[avoided by taking money out of AAPL (unless you are retiring and want to reposition into an income holding, in which case, bon voyage), that is where the risk is: you risk you miss the moves that make the stock the good long-term investment that it is. If you think this is crazy, you aren't an investor in the shares, you're just here to trade them. I'm here for the long term. I've seen the money left on the table by "taking profit" (missing opportunity). Some folks with a polished crystal ball who can really time entry and exit may somehow do better than long-term investors, but I've not actually seen this in the real world, and certainly not in my holdings. I can't time entry/exit to save my life. However, some shares that were put to me at 80 in january are already in the black, so my inability to time entry hasn't really hurt me, has it?

Here's to iTV and the mobile phones

Take care,
--Tex.