Steven Philips on Premarket: Apple was red, turned green - 'You’re all set if there’s another pandemic! 🙂'
on Why Daniel Ives included Apple in his top five AI stocks for 2026 - 'Funny Ives refers to Musk as a “war-time CEO”. Maybe. But I’d put him on the Mussolini side of that “war-time leader” ledger, similarly made mostly of entitlement, threats, rage, vengeance, delusion, and dishonesty. Give me a leader like Tim Cook, during good times and bad.'
on The trillions spent on new computing infrastructure suddenly makes sense to me - 'It’s true that for narrowly focused applications an AI trained just on that task can be very effective. It is not clear how well this can be generalized or whether there is anyone willing to pay money for this. I strongly suspect that the rich Wall Street guys have already put a ton of money into this. If they can find a 0.1% advantage it is worth it to them.'
on Premarket: Apple was red, turned green - 'Although the market is down as we enter the final trading hour on the final day of the year, I’m grateful for the successes so many of us have achieved as 2025 comes to a close. The S&P 500 is up over 16% this year and the Nasdaq Composite is up over 20%! Happy New Year to all Apple 3.0 subscribers! May 2026 be a year of continued success and a year of peace and prosperity for each of us and our families! Godspeed and full speed ahead!'
on Button is a Hold on Apple - '**I’ve included below, the first part of my response to A.J. Button’s article at Seeking Alpha. “A.J. Button: “Apple (AAPL) is one of the few U.S. big tech stocks that has not performed well in 2025. Up 8.5% for the year, it has lagged behind the S&P 500 by a considerable margin.” **Yes, 2025 has not been a stellar year for AAPL/Apple. Fortunately, as long-term *investors*, my wife and I have held a 100% AAPL portfolio since 2000 and have experienced a 102,949% gain. How has the S&P 500 fared over that same time period?” In the article, he states that AAPL is a “Hold”…which is much closer to being correct than “Sell” AAPL. However, my wife and I have been buying AAPL with the quarterly AAPL dividends in our IRA’s since 2012 and the, split-adjusted, cost basis of those new AAPL shares is $55.78/share. So, even though A.J. Button’s advice to “Hold” AAPL may be appropriate for those who already own AAPL, IMO, “Hold” AAPL and buy more AAPL when possible is *also* appropriate for long-term investors.'
on Premarket: Apple was red, turned green - '@Robert: Just wanted to let you know that I got into CLX near its low last week when it dropped below $98 to $97 and some change. People will always be using bleach so I pulled the trigger on CLX as opposed to LW. A very nice dividend as well currently yielding around 5%. Just a small position thanks to my Apple dividends. Happy New Year and great health in 2026 to you, PED, and every subscriber on Apple 3.0 for all of their ongoing informative posts and experiences'
on The trillions spent on new computing infrastructure suddenly makes sense to me - 'SHOW ME THE APPLICATIONS. I am NOT convinced at all! Special purpose hardware solves specific problems, using custom software, where there is a return on the investment for that specific HW/SW. “generalized parallelization” is a grail that has been discussed for 50 years, and I don’t think suddenly it’ll emerge and make the previous 80 years of computing suddenly obsolete. Furthermore, parallelization (hardware and software) generates a much larger moat than anything Apple has ever conceived of. NVIDIA has this moat for LLM AI, it would be too expensive to develop for a different platform and way too expensive to move to an alternate platform, once established on NVIDIA. But economics here are likely to win out; the cost of the NVIDIA monopoly will encourage others to compete. When webservers suddenly pop up running on NVIDIA data centers, I might be more willing to believe in this shift.'
on Button is a Hold on Apple - 'My take: This is just the latest version of Apple is doomed by the same old “law” of large numbers fake meme. You’d think these folks would have learned by now…. “Now, however, the stock is trading at a valuation that implies growth, even though the company is no longer growing rapidly.” Wrong. “Rapidly” is a relative term. He meant “as rapidly as in the past”, which is certainly true, but doesn’t take into account the many, many years when it was seriously undervalued and Apple was just as seriously reducing the float. Look: Way back in early November of 2020, AAPL went over a trailing P/E of 40, at a price of about $120/share. At the beginning of this quarter, with an ATH of &288/share, Apple once more surpassed a trailing P/E of 40. That’s a gain of about $160/share or 133% ( not factoring in inflation) over a bit more than 5 years, and on a par with MSFT. And if you look at a 10 year chart for Apple, it looks like it’s set to at least add about the same over the next five years. True, that would reduce the gain (not factoring in inflation) to (160/272=) about 60%, but (a) that ain’t hay and (b) that’s a very conservative estimate. So what he really means is that Apple didn’t benefit from the huge AI “gold rush” that many others did. But is that a fair comparison, considering just how limited the amount of “gold” appears to be actually “panning out”? Bottom line: Going forward, Apple will almost certainly be “digging out” some nice AI “nuggets”, which may well be more than some of the present high-flying AI stocks will manage to do….'
on Apple 3.0 New Year's eve predictions and purchases - 'David, Rosetta 2 is so good that I’d bet your old Intel version of Excel (and other Intel applications) will run just fine on an Apple Silicon Mac.'
on Button is a Hold on Apple - ' His summary is accurate and hard to disagree with. I disagree. The time to buy is when equity value hasn’t adjusted to account for future potential. In C2026 I see Apple Intelligence (led by improved SIRI) leading to Google like placement deals. Apple Vision Pro was announced June 5, 2023. During the last Conference Call Cook addressed Summer of 2026 as when these improvements will be addressed. By WWDC 2026 that’ll be 3 years for developers to create Vision Pro Apps and, and Apple to sign Vision Pro streaming content agreements. A seriously upgraded Apple Vision Pro (made possible by greatly increased screen supply), Services expansion with FIA, MLS, NBA, streaming content enhanced by Vision Pro subscription offerings with AppleTV. Apple may delay charging for Vision Pro subscriptions until FY2028 to get users hooked on the technology. In the meantime I expect a deal with Real Madrid for entry into Premier League Football. F1: The Movie will be re-released as a Vision Pro product. The sum of these offerings may not move Apple’s revenue (percent wise) in the near term that much, but will signal future revenue growth to investors that buy the future at today’s discounted prices. I’m looking for significant equity growth beginning in June and continuing thereafter as Apple announces more and more Vision Pro content deals with content providers. This is 2+ years after my first equity expansion forecast, as I greatly underestimated the complexity of establishing Vision Pro infrastructure to support an effective ecosystem, and ecosystems drive hardware revenue.'
on Button is a Hold on Apple - 'His summary is accurate and hard to disagree with. The one thing that I would add is that Apple offers lower risk now. Your money is safely invested with Apple. Compared to other big tech companies who are all racing to use “AI” – whatever that means – by throwing an absurd amount of cash at it, their stock prices can get clobbered by increased volatility the millisecond something competitive (better) pops up at any given moment. Which seems to be the case, particularly for a technology so new. It’s been said that AI is akin to giving birth to a new species. And it’s become increasingly clear, that there’s less that it’s creators know about what the side effects of an all powerful self-generating AI will be, than we can possibly imagine. By taking their time, and partnering as they go, it now appears Apple doesn’t have that AI stock volatility problem after all. Because…. as I’ve stated before, Apple is the consumer’s favorite gateway for everything that everybody else wants to offer online. Apple’s road map seems pretty clear. Siri on steroids will eventually become everybody’s favorite personal assistant. Maybe not as soon as all of the day-traders, peanut-gallerists and impatient armchair-experts would like, but soon enough. I mean, it’s not as if consumers have stopped buying iPhones. Pardon me if I repeat myself, but – there is no deadline.'
on Apple 3.0 New Year's eve predictions and purchases - 'I think my MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2016, Four Thunderbolt 3 Ports) is ready for an upgrade. I’ve been sorta watching and waiting. Even not knowing what might be coming in 2027, I think 2026 has to be the year that I pull the trigger, because I am stuck on macOS Monterey 12.7.6, and that is also holding em captive on Microsoft® Excel for Mac Version 16.89.1 (24091630). I’m fairly confident that Mail Version 16.0 (3696.120.41.1.10) is also delivering an experience way below what the current version of Mail has to offer. So a MacBook in 2026 for sure. Most likely an iPhone as well. I like the iPhone 15 Pro Max, and iOS 26.2 seems fine, but I am sure there will be at least one offering in 2026 that makes a valid upgrade. Then I’ll probably get suckered into an XX whenever that comes around. There are chances in iPad Land, but I’m not in a hurry. If I get a bigger TV, then a newer Apple TV might make sense. But that’s really all I can see for 2026 (not that it isn’t enough IMNSHO). The new Airpods Pro 3 are awesome. Highly recommended.'
on Button is a Hold on Apple - 'I don’t have any problem with this. Apple is a value play with growth potential in a period of global uncertainty. What’s not to like?'
on Apple 3.0 New Year's eve predictions and purchases - 'Agreed. As a better Apple analyst then many of the pros. I thought you would be knee deep in their ecosystem. Our Apple Christmas was nonexistent, but then again we had an Apple fall – new 12” M5 iPadPro, iPhone ProMax, two iPhone 17 upgrades and a MacBook Air for a new freshman entering HS.'
on Why Daniel Ives included Apple in his top five AI stocks for 2026 - 'Joe gets on my last nerve. Still cannot believe he has a job.'
on Apple 3.0 New Year's eve predictions and purchases - 'Bart – shocking! Not what you purchased, but what you put up with for so long! 🙂'
