Roger Schutte on Apple at $300: Why now? - 'I squirted another traunch of our most appreciated shares into our donor advised fund.'
on The delayed launch of Samsung's Galaxy 26 gave Apple's iPhones a boost - 'David & Gregg, thank you both for your observation that a delayed Galaxy S26 launch is just that, delayed, and diehard Galaxy users would not jump ship, least of all to iPhone because of that. BUT, if social media (Reddit) is to be believed, there’s plenty of folks in both the iOS and Android worlds who will voice their displeasure & dissatisfaction with either iOS or specific Android maker/Android software problems, or had hardware or support issues, and now are willing to try something else not their current product. Now here’s where Counterpoint and others’ use of percentage market share as a marker gets fuzzy, for me at least. Let’s say Q1 last year Apple sold 100 units, Samsung 50 units, and the Android rest 100 units. Total 250, Apple share 40.0%. FFwd to this Quarter, and say Apple sells exact the same 100, Samsung only 44, and the rest contracts to 86. Total is 230, a 8% shrinkage of the total market. Samsung goes down 12% due to delayed sales of flagships and maybe contraction of its low & mid devices, the rest of Android declines 13%, total Android drop = 13.6%. Here, Apple sells no more, no less, 0 volume gain, yet “market share” increased to 100/230 = 43.5%, a 9% increase while not selling any more YoY, and “could be” interpreted as filling the vacuum left by Samsung’s deficit and Android’s decline. Now certainly, Apple could have sold 106 while Samsung sold 45 and Android fell to 85, giving Apple 106/236 = 45%, a volume gain of 6% YoY, while its market share increased 12%, Android dropped 14%. This time a real Apple gain against a real Android shrinkage. To me, Apple cares not a whit about market share or what Android (or PC) competition is doing, precisely because Apple has no control over that. What Apple DOES care about is selling more in absolute terms which grows revenue, or more revenue in absolute terms by growing ASP (“favorable mix”, “leverage”), either way, it’s growing revenue YoY, that’s why focus is not on how many widgets sold but how much you make, and take home. Android loyalists NEVER talk about revenue or profits for the Android vendor, instead focusing on number sold (but not average price), specs, features, parts, battery size, and value bang for the buck they spend, sure in the belief that they paid the least for the most. If their favorite maker sold more in a particular region, then it’s superior and other regions are rigged, particularly the US. No question that the US banned Huawei on security grounds, giving Apple, Samsung, Motorola most of the country, and no Chinese OEM has made any serious attempt to crack the market. Yet in China, Samsung is essentially discriminated out, India, while populous, has a limited, for now, purchasing power. In regions like Europe, Asia Pacific where Apple and Android do compete, Apple maintains control of the premium tier, Android the rest. That is how it always has been. A few even say that only India and China are the true large markets that prove the dominance numerically of Android and US & Europe are rigged against “foreign” Chinese makers. Android numeric advantage, Apple Revenue advantage. Oh, One other thing. Any pointing out how Apple makes more revenue to them, they’ll tell you Apple has brainwashed you and others to pay for overpriced junk that could be bested by Android products at a cheaper price, so you’re just contributing to a greedy monopolistic American consumerist company, while Chinese OEMs offer real value, real tech, for a more affordable price, and they don’t prioritize profit over serving vastly more people. But the android folks also have little brand loyalty, flitting and swapping products at will, buying new smartphones every 2-3 years and discarding the old ones, as if that wasn’t consumerism at its worst. And of course, you have to be a true techie to love and enjoy and modify an Android because that’s what all Android people do, that makes them technologically more advanced than those people who use a closed off iOS that’s simple and too easy, meaning anyone who is buying one is not technically inclined and knows little about tech, just buys what Apple gives them, and they’d buy different if they only could see what else was out there. That makes Apple buyers inferior to Android buyers. Some say all of Apple’s sales and revenue figures and data Apple puts out are lies, and so is the sales data that research firms publish if it isn’t complementary to their favorite. Etc. etc., it’s a real nasty jumbled world out there in Android land.'
on Apple at $300: Why now? - 'I sold all my AAPL when it hit 300 ! I will reinvest in several distributing equity funds, since at 73 I need a stable income…'
on Apple at $300: Why now? - 'Cy: There was no Microsoft bailout. Microsoft invested in a special class of Apple preferred stock. Microsoft’s investment in Apple was never deployed for any purpose that involved the operations of the company and Microsoft profited handsomely from the conversion to common and the eventual sale of the shares. Microsoft at that time also committed to continuing to release and support Office for Mac. The companies ended the litigation between them (important to Microsoft) and entered into a cross-patent licensing agreement. Apple agreed to make Internet Explorer the default browser on the Mac. What prompted these actions may have been Apple’s litigation concerning the San Francisco Canyon Company and its work for Microsoft. There’s more to this story than most people know.'
on Apple at $300: Why now? - 'It is pure arrogance to suggest you know why a stock moves. The only reason is that there is a difference of opinion between buyers and sellers. If there is only one seller and one buyer you will be very hard pressed to know either opinion. Forget it if there are more than two people involved. Distrust anyone who says they know why a stock moves.'
on The delayed launch of Samsung's Galaxy 26 gave Apple's iPhones a boost - '” with ~25% remaining before expiry ” Whoops. I hate it when this happens. The above should read: “with ~5% remaining before expiry “.'
on Apple's in the AI catbird seat - 'And the link to the media story: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ai-scribe-system-hallucinations-9.7197049'
on Apple soars to a new record close: $298.97 - 'Darren – I ran your comment through Gemini and here’s the short answer… “Premarket is often just low-volume ‘noise’ where macro jitters drag prices down on thin liquidity. The 9:30 AM reversal marks the entry of institutional ‘real money’ that ignores these early head-fakes to buy high-quality names at a relative discount.”'
on Apple soars to a new record close: $298.97 - 'AI still delivering. I just sold a parcel of MRVL for $181. I bought that parcel only 12 months ago for $55. With an AAPL ATH that got me a small sale at $299.80 it’s been a good day.'
on The delayed launch of Samsung's Galaxy 26 gave Apple's iPhones a boost - 'With integrated memory, Apple’s SoC costs would STILL be driven by the production costs for the wafers. It seems to me there’s no significant incremental costs for Apple’s SoC based memory, unlike those vendors who have to pay the price for, and compete for -separate- memory components. Now that wouldn’t hold for persistent storage, where Apple would still have to compete for similar products.'
on Apple at $300: Why now? - 'Hi, Cy. I’m guessing our average split-adjusted purchase price was about $4.50/share. That comes to a present ROi on the remaining shares of 66.666…X. That’s nothing compared to NVDA’s rise, of course, but it has served to keep the wolf from our door since the Great Recession. Tough times, those years….'
on Apple at $300: Why now? - 'My best purchase at $3.33 from Oct 27, 2008 (and a bunch of other lots around then ranging up to $3.78) have done some heavy lifting for sure. An 8,888% gain! I know others have done a lot better and I’m happy for them! Wishing I’d pulled the trigger on AAPL around the Microsoft bailout time. Thought about it and I was (stupidly) investing high risk back then so made sense. Would have been (an even bigger) game changer!'
