Joseph Bland on Premarket: Apple is red - 'Hi, Cy, “…pivots lower by 20-50%.” Per the Apple Stocks app chart, we haven’t seen a single 50% drop in AAPL since buybacks started in Q3 fy 2012. And over the last decade, we’ve seen increasingly shallower percentage drops. Even in the big retrenchment that took many tech stocks down between January and June “22, Apple only dropped about 30%. AAPL has always been a seismic stock, but the percentage of the swings is slowly being muted by Apple’s buybacks and the resulting shift to a higher percentage of long term investors and the concomitant reduction in short term traders. Long gone are the days when options traders and options manipulators ruled the AAPL roost.'
on Apple's App Tracking Transparency eludes Italy's competition authority - ' My take: Is every European country going to go after Apple, right or wrong? Of course they are. They smell free money. The fact that their respective “enforcement” departments are technological idiots, with poor to non-existent investigatory skills, doesn’t interfere with the aroma isn’t important.'
on Saturday Apple video: Steve Jobs' NeXT has birthing pains - 'Man I miss this guy. I would absolutely love to hear his take on “AI” and the future of computing. Contrast the way he communicates, and the ideas he conveys, to the nonsensical word salad that dribbles out of people like Zuckerberg or Altman today.'
on Premarket: Apple is red - 'G’day Robert, doesn’t seem that odd for AAPL as it’s been trading like a meme stock pre-market the last few weeks. From memory, AAPL has had 4 green closes in the last 13 or so sessions. Two of those were barely green and add to that Friday’s odd close. Seems the energy is out of AAPL for now. Wondering where this downward trajectory will end. Feels AAPL’s history over the past 5 years has been the good upward runs are followed by immediate pivots lower by 20-50%. Surprised with this pivot given the price target increases, but probably shouldn’t have been. While everyone quotes AAPL’s 30%+ run from its April lows, last week AAPL traded to within a few dollars of where it was this time last year and down ~$25 from its high. Further, AAPL is up ~9% in a year when the SP500 is ~17% (plus 2-3x the dividend) and SPYG and QQQ are 21-22%. Other than my money market and fixed income holdings, which have different objectives, AAPL my lowest returning investment. Reinforces moving my portfolio from 90-95% AAPL to less than 50% over the past 3 years. If AAPL goes down much further, I’ll be kicking myself for not taking the tax penalty and liquidating. However, hindsight investing is always easy. You’ve been a proponent of diversifying and considering more compelling investments and I have greatly appreciated your thoughts.'
on This week's Apple trading strategies (12/22-12/26/25) - 'AAPL deserves better action than this, and I am hopeful (and fairly confident) that the January report will deliver a substantial piece of that. Sometime, you have to buy to news. WWDC/”OS 27″ in 2026 should also be important.'
on Premarket: Apple is red - 'Index futures are definitely on the green side of the line as we head toward today’s opening bell. Oddly Apple is in the red $0.22 at $273.45. Microsoft is ahead $1.57 at $487.49 and Broadcom is higher by $6.37 at $346.08. In just ten minutes we begin a holiday-shortened trading week…'
on This week's Apple trading strategies (12/22-12/26/25) - 'Dan needs a fashion intervention. The jacket OR shirt – not both. Reminding me of the Riddler.'
on Craig Moffett's Apple rating has gone from Sell to Neutral with a $234 target - 'Do you mean that he HAS had finer moments?'
on This week's Apple trading strategies (12/22-12/26/25) - 'We were talking about the big PowerBall lottery at Scotch Club last night. (It’s actually a better-than-even bet, lump sum exceeds 1/(odds / bet).) In particular we were talking about private jet ownership vs fractional ownership, etc. The consensus was “buy the jet then contract a ‘fractional’ company to staff it and rent it out when we weren’t using it.”) Me, I’d go for renting the jet when I needed it and build a nice art collection. We went to the Winslow Homer watercolor exhibit at the MFA a couple weeks ago, and something by Homer would be in my top 3 want-list. 🙂 🙂'
on Craig Moffett's Apple rating has gone from Sell to Neutral with a $234 target - 'Good point. Moffett set a low price target and made up stuff to support it. Or, “My mind is made up. Please don’t confuse me with the facts.” And, when people buy the higher memory options, the margins are superb. OK, so maybe a tiny bit less superb. Crying all the way to the bank.'
on This week's Apple trading strategies (12/22-12/26/25) - 'Re the interview – I agree. I do think that Dan is trying to overwhelm us with his wardrobe selections though. They get ever more garish – the clash between the shirt and tie is legendary. Almost like he’s screaming out for attention more than usual. Oh well, Merry Christmas/Happy Hanukkah/Solstice/Yule/etc to all. Even to Dan, and all the other analysts out there. Peace to all men and women of good will, not just at this time of year but all year long. And next year, and the year after that, etc. And if you’re also a subscriber, hey Santa: I’d love to see a Christmas rally for AAPL!'
on This week's Apple trading strategies (12/22-12/26/25) - 'Nice AAPL run the last 15 minutes of trading Friday! Must have been related to the quad witching (expiration) day?'
on Craig Moffett's Apple rating has gone from Sell to Neutral with a $234 target - 'I don’t quite get the Analyst’s concern with memory prices. Yes, memory prices are and will rise as demand has outstripped supply. For Apple, as one of THE largest customers of all the memory makers, they are ordering in the hundreds of millions of parts, and primarily mobile type high performance memory. Because Apple has some of the highest gross margins and buying clout, they can still negotiate better prices than most, even Samsung. Chinese OEMs might get a break from any Chinese memory makers, but for most all of Android, their margins are thin already, and any memory cost hit will require parts reduction, limits in memory sizes, or price increases. I don’t see Apple raising prices appreciably unless the market goes really haywire. I anticipate memory makers expanding production eventually and prices coming down within a year or two. Apple may have some price elasticity with its users but I don’t think Apple is going to push that, except maybe with the new Foldable.'
