This week’s Apple trading strategies (10/19-10/23)

A place for Apple traders and investors to share their best ideas.

To get things started, here’s Loup Ventures’ Gene Munster downplaying the carriers’ 5G hype and the analysts’ talk of a supercycle, but anticipating three years of solid growth following the iPhone 12 launch…

Below: Apple vs. the S&P 500 (normalized)…

Disclosure: Although I am now an Apple shareholder (see Why I bought a share of Apple, my first), I am in no position to give trading advice. Don’t blame me if you drain your IRA doing something you read about here.

16 Comments

Steven Philips said:

“The best way to invest in 5G is going Apple.” 🙂
Pretty good comments overall. I mostly agree.

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October 18, 2020
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- Bart Yee said:
  
  QCOM is also a good 5G play.
  1.128B shares outstanding, paltry 6M volume Friday, 3mo avg volume 9.3M, PE ratio of 54.8, 52% higher than AAPL. Chipmaker with licensing revenue. Up 115% from Feb. lows, +50% YTD.
  
  Still think AAPL is better longer term.
  
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  October 18, 2020
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Fred Stein said:

Gene nailed it, pulling out insights and implications that others missed. Right on, about deconstrucing the ‘super cycle’ meme as a one year thing. And that supports his multiple expansion thesis.

As for trading, the market still undervalues AAPL. But ‘animal spirits’ (Maynard Keynes) rule the day.

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October 18, 2020
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Fred Stein said:

Tangent topic, TSMC. If interested, Semiwiki’s bullish article on TSMC, highlights their strategic relationship with Apple in the opening paragraphs.

While down in weeds, this stuff matters, and supports the multiples.

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October 18, 2020
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- David Drinkwater said:
  
  Link?
  
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  October 18, 2020
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  - David Drinkwater said:
    
    Too late to edit, but I hadn’t seen the additional article..
    
    Nevermind.
    
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    October 18, 2020
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Jerry Doyle said:

Gene denoted exceptionally and graphically the role he sees HomePod Mini playing in effecting Apple consumers’ experience going forward through the HomePod Mini’s facilitatory integration of Apple devices. When Apple introduced the HomePod Mini as a $99 price point during the Apple Speed event Tuesday that was the “WoW” factor that had me levitating above my chair up around the ceiling fan blades. It was like when I heard the first time The Beetles’ hit song, “Let it Be,” where in my graduate school apartment I was compelled to jump on the floor mattress shouting “Let it Be, Let it Be!” I knew immediately the HomePod Mini was a Holiday stocking gift and that these units would start appearing across America in every room in homes. Not only will the HomePod Mini drive additional revenues, but drive ever more the stickiness of the Apple ecosystem. Let it Be, Let it Be! 🙂

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October 18, 2020
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Steven Philips said:

Now an image of Jerry I’ll never get out of my head!
Jumping on a mattress shouting “Let it be…” 🙂
I agree with your thoughts on the mini as well.
My big concern when I watched was that it sounded TOO good. I’m worried that they can’t really deliver on all that and will get negative feedback.
But Oh! If it works!!! 🙂

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October 18, 2020
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Kirk DeBernardi said:

As I’ve mentioned before, my home is replete with HomePods as I always yearned for a whole-house sound system and the choice of the HomePod ended up being a shoe-in, not only for price, but for unity of accurate sound across my entire living space.

Yet I am more than excited about the upcoming HomePod mini and will be ordering two for an audio performance trial.

I too, like Steven Philips, worry that the sound presence might be notably weak for an average-sized room simply because of diminutive size. You have to move a fair amount of air for playback to be worthy of some satisfactory fulfillment.

However, in the past I have been many times surprised by the performance of other diminutive-sized speakers and the quality of their sound as the objective listener should appropriately adjust their expectations to the size of the device.

Apple’s audio designers know that the proper approach to small size is to engineer (computational audio, anyone?) a fullness of sound — the complete spectrum of music playback — as you would with ANY size speaker.

If they pull this off, this will more than compensate for the PRESENCE of the sound as compared to the original HomePod. It’s the fullness of the sound playback that really touches and delights.

Fingers crossed as I believe these might compete with the sales performance of AirPods.

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October 18, 2020
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- Kirk DeBernardi said:
  
  One more thing…
  
  …accurate sound too.
  
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  October 18, 2020
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  - Romeo A Esparrago Jr said:
    
    Hi Kirk, you’ll be going from like 14 HPods + 2 HPod Mini’s right?
    Me is 5 + 2 + my legacy speakers tied to my AirPort Expresses.
    I just found The Verge’s Oct 15 story “Dolby Atmos will be supported by the pre-existing HomePod, but not the HomePod mini.”
    Dolby Atmos tied to AppleTV4K.
    So I’m sad to hear that but the layout in my head just has to change where I put the Mini’s.
    
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    October 18, 2020
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- David Drinkwater said:
  
  I would think the challenge will obviously be the bass. I’ve been a Bose user for years. Some may say they are overpriced, but I think they sound great. I love what that big box on the floor delivers for bass, along with decoding the signal to the associated speakers. But one has to note, those other speakers are all pretty darnn small, probably about the same size as a HomePod Mini. So a lot of it can clearly be done, and I think my speakers are six year old technology.
  
  Cost per use per day drops significantly if somethings works for you for a long time. Apart from the proprietary connections to the pass though in my walls, I think they are great.
  
  But it will probably explore the HomePod Mini also.
  
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  October 18, 2020
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  - Romeo A Esparrago Jr said:
    
    Hi David,
    I’m never happy with bass so I have a large legacy subwoofer tethered to an Airport Express. I named it as such so HomeKit can see it. Used with my paired HPods & in-ceiling speakers from my broadcasting AppleTV. I blast the house when no one else is home LOL.
    
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    October 18, 2020
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    - Bart Yee said:
      
      Nothing like JBL 4333A Studio Monitors and Sumo Samson subwoofer with 15” JBL driver. But I don’t have intercom function or Siri.
      
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      October 18, 2020
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Steven Philips said:

Kirk, I was more concerned about all the OTHER things – related to “intercom” etc..All that communication related stuff COULD make the mini just “magical”! And the price might make these take off harder than I think Tags will.

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October 18, 2020
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Kirk DeBernardi said:

@ Romeo A Esparrago Jr — Steven Philips and David Drinkwater —

Nice to see some comments about audio experiences on this blog as I believe good audio in life can be a potent positive elixir in one’s life.

As I mentioned in a previous post, the HomePod mini might carry with it a Trojan Horse potential of squarely planting the Apple ecosystem and functional ingenuity into people’s homes merely because of it’s wet-the-beak price of $99 AND it’s accommodating, bashful little size.

However I wish this “planting” could have been better accomplished by pulling people UP (as most Apple products have) to the full HomePod sound instead of pushing people down into the cost-competitiveness arena of “those other guys” speakers.
Who knows, this could spur even more original HomePod purchases for the more critical listening areas of a home.

I hope that Apple has voiced this little orb to present an across-the-sound-spectrum BALANCED and full sound. If it’s accurate sound, the petiteness might not matter and you can listen for hours and hours without ever being fatigued by the sound — a hallmark of good sound reproduction.

Let’s all keep our fingers crossed that Apple will shock us all with its audio performance. It just might sell as well as AirPods.

(Romeo A Esparrago Jr — I intend to try the two minis in my Master Bath to possibly replace the one HomePod there now.)

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October 19, 2020
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