Robert Paul Leitao on Premarket: Apple is green - 'Apple ended Monday trading off $5.49 at $303.42. This is a big drop from the newly minted all-time high of $344.57 reached last Wednesday. Adding insult to injury Morningstar has dropped Apple to a 2-star sell rating and a Fair Value Estimate of $285 per share. In contrast to Apple’s performance, Amazon set a new all-time high of $287.16 today and a new all-time closing high of $284.02 while rising $12.44 today and ending the day with a market cap above $3 trillion for the first time. The shares are up 22.75% over the past five trading days. Microsoft is up 25.33% over the past five days, gained $22.93 today or 4.93% to close at $487.65. The shares remain below the all-time high of $553.72 set back in October. Microsoft’s market cap now stands at $3.62 trillion versus $4.43 trillion for Apple and $4.57 trillion for Alphabet. The search giant is up just over 14% over the past five days. What a difference a few days can make when investors relax their concerns (at least for now) about the economics of AI and the capex deployments of the hyperscalers.'
on Apple-AI enthusiast Errol Brandt looks forward to Oracle's comeuppance - 'https://bushfire.io has excellent fire mapping and detailed information. The extent and number of fires across North America at the moment is staggering. I’d be off line if I were Gregg.'
on Premarket: Apple is green - 'David, Jim Cramer has been very emotional about stocks including Apple but his projections in terms of Apple stock in times were Apple stock was low or being dragged down often have had random accuracy. Despite his “hold Apple don’t trade it “ advice he is influenced by the sentiment on the street that surrounds him. When the news about Apple is negative he often thinks the stock price will drop farther than it does. Of course the drop this time after earnings is strong enough to test anyone’s patience so it could take a while for the stock to stabilize. And somehow I think the fall product line should sell well which won’t show up in this quarter as much as the next.'
on Apple-AI enthusiast Errol Brandt looks forward to Oracle's comeuppance - 'Don’t know if this is correct. Somehow in the past I’d gotten the impression that Gregg lived a bit NW of Spokane proper. And North and NW are where the fires are. So concerns may be warranted.'
on Apple-AI enthusiast Errol Brandt looks forward to Oracle's comeuppance - '@Fred The thesis of the Warren’s seaside metaphor is ineluctable. The hypothesis underlying its application to datacenter economics is less solid.'
on Apple-AI enthusiast Errol Brandt looks forward to Oracle's comeuppance - 'Re: Ellison A few years ago we visited a friend in Woodside, Calif. and afterwards were driving when suddenly there was a stretch alongside the road where every leaf and loose branch had been meticulously picked up. Also, fancy guard shacks placed every few hundred feet. It was Ellison’s property. I think I told the following story previously, but it is a good one so I’ll repeat it. Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison were talking and Larry said “I own this big boat, a whole Hawaiian island, etc. etc…” And Steve said “Yeah Larry that’s nice, but I have something that you’ll never have”. Larry: “What’s that?” Steve: “I have Enough”.'
on Tim Cook stuck to his knitting - 'So what the heck is my stepson saying here? He’s saying Apple is the one who should be creating those “peer-to-peer LLM networks” (call them ptp LLM nets for short). Because, simply put, individual folks (as opposed to legal firms, R&D labs, etc) will trust Apple more than they will individual ptp LLM nets. Heck, I know I would! Pretty simple idea, really. Apple, are you listening?'
on Tim Cook stuck to his knitting - 'I feel we were incredibly lucky to have Tim Cook as CEO all these years. He’s always deceptively calm and reserved in public appearances. I think of all the crazy CEOs we’ve seen in the last few decades. Tim has done a masterful job of navigation. My favorite line from him is how he often tells us how he “couldn’t be more excited” while speaking in a slow, calm voice. I’ll miss that. Think of how it could have been. Recall there was talk of making Elon Musk CEO of Apple. (Shiver) I saw a headline today that Musk wants to put a giraffe on Pluto in five years. It was a parody but when I related that to someone today they had to ask “Did he really say that?”. Sounds plausible that Elon might have said that.'
on Apple-AI enthusiast Errol Brandt looks forward to Oracle's comeuppance - 'Remember WeWork? Long term real estate leases, rent out short term. Silicon Valley Bank – borrow long to lend short. Or Warren Buffet; “When the tide goes out, we see who’s wearing a bathing suit.”'
on Apple-AI enthusiast Errol Brandt looks forward to Oracle's comeuppance - 'I am quite looking forward to the second AI domino after Oracle. Sam Altman falling to the ground will be entertaining. No-one will have sympathy for Ellison nor Altman I suspect.'
on Premarket: Apple is green - 'Regardless of how you may feel about Jim Cramer, I find that he’s useful as a pretty good gauge of the market’s temperament, especially during sell-offs and rallies. Last Friday, Cramer said that Apple will very likely go down further than where it already had. MY TAKE My sense is, based on years of observing this kind of “sell on the news“ behavior, that Apple’s going to continue to get pounded down as much as the algorithms and HFT’s can possibly make it go down. And then go sideways… at least until after the dividend is paid. I don’t wish to be pessimistic, but based on the cold, calculating playbook that algorithms and HFT‘s use, it would not surprise me if Apple doesn’t go back down into the 290s before settling. Everything else being equal, like war and inflation – Apple’s stock price will probably not settle and start going back up until there is some good Apple centric news. In this case, as we wait to get past this latest news cycle, I think the stock will recover when new iPhones launch in September and there are good preliminary sales numbers reported. And it also wouldn’t surprise me if Apple’s stock price isn’t back where it was before the sell-off by then. Of course, like over half the analysts out there, I could be wrong. In which case, I might have better luck flipping a coin. The awful truth is, AI is not our friend. At least in terms of investing in Apple. Because AI has done nothing but upset Apple‘s phenomenal performance. From a seesaw of changing opinions. Fortunately, Apple has a resilient business model with many levers to pull, and long-term the stock will do just fine.'
on Apple-AI enthusiast Errol Brandt looks forward to Oracle's comeuppance - 'I was thinking the same thing. That he’s gone silent is unusual – and concerning.'
on Apple-AI enthusiast Errol Brandt looks forward to Oracle's comeuppance - 'If/When Oracle goes bust, what -should happen- is the reorganization splits it into two companies. One for the DBMS and related software products, and the other for cloud & AI infrastructure.'
on Tim Cook stuck to his knitting - '“ but did he have to spend so much time at the White House?” I believe some people’s hate for Trump will make it hard for them to reasonably think thru that question. Personally I believe any negative effects from those visits will be short lived and history will be on TC’s side.'
on Tim Cook stuck to his knitting - 'That’s the answer to the $25 million question that I posed on Saturday. (Hence upvoted.)'
on Premarket: Apple is green - 'At market close last Friday, 07/31/26, AAPL was down about -7.4% from the previous day and about -9.2% from its ATH close on 07/28/26. Since my wife and I have been 100% invested in AAPL for the past 26 years we watched our entire portfolio drop that same percentage over those two days. I’ve often compared our current AAPL portfolio worth to our AAPL portfolio worth when I retired in 2008. At AAPL’s recent ATH close, our portfolio was about 55.8 times the 2008 size…now it’s about 50.7. Is there a problem with long-term investing in AAPL? I don’t think so. And, since we held AAPL when it dropped -35% in 2002, -57% in 2008 and through 3 other years when AAPL was negative for the year, I’m not worried. After all, AAPL is still up 13.6% for 2026…and if we look at the entire “Magnificent Seven” stocks, AAPL is still doing very well in comparison. YTD Percentages (as of 0/31/26) 1. AMZN: +17.7% YTD 2. GOOG: +13.7% YTD 3. AAPL: +13.6% YTD 4. NVDA: +7.6% YTD 5. MSFT: +3.9% YTD 6. META: -15.7% YTD 7. TSLA: -30.8% YTD Cheers to the very patient AAPL Longs!'
