Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Apple Sucks: Reason 99

ROI: Why iPads Make Lousy Christmas Gifts - WSJ.com: "...OK, I admit it: I've been wrong about Apple stock lately. After correctly turning bullish at $85 two years ago, I turned cautious waaay too early. My mistake? This isn't a technology company. It's a luxury brand, like Hermès or Tiffany. And it's wooed customers so they'll pay almost anything for its products. Last Christmas, Apple's gross margins were 41%. That's incredible. It's good for Apple, good for stockholders—but not so good for shoppers. Me, I don't want to support someone else's 60% markups with my own dollars. Generally speaking, the smarter move is to invest in the Tiffanys of the world—and shop at the Wal-Marts..."

And 100: "...OK, I already knew about the fans. Last summer, three-quarters of the people standing in line so they could buy the new iPhone the moment it went on sale already owned an iPhone. But now it's the company, too. Look at how it reacted last spring, when a Silicon Valley blogger scooped an early iPhone 4: Next thing he knew he was being handcuffed on his lawn in front of his wife while police ransacked his house. And think of Steve Jobs, complaining that news coverage of the iPhone 4's troubled aerial had been "blown so out of proportion that it's incredible." Hmmm, out-of-proportion media coverage—you sure you want to go there, Steve? This is the guy marketing a new telephone under the slogan "This changes everything. Again." Maybe this stuff shouldn't matter to me, but I have to confess it's turning me off."

3 comments:

Alessandro Machi said...

In my opinion Apple Stock is a ponzi scheme. It's not going to go up forever. What is missing from the equation are dividends.

That to me is the scam of all scams. People keep buying a stock from a successful company that offers no dividends.

What is the point of owning the stock? To ride it to the highest point, then jump off before others jump off and the price drops.

It's basically gambling. Dividends at least justify the Apple stock investment through ups and downs.

The bigger they rise, the harder they fall.

Bob Harrison said...

That I didn't know. That probably ought to be reason 1!

Bob Harrison said...

A "friend" works for a major bank and he/she says that what we're hearing is just very tip of a huge berg of corruption and that they know exactly who they're screwing and how.