Recent Comments

  • Roger Schutte on Apple blows past expectations and its shares fall. What gives? - 'Gregg, I don’t understand your comment of share buyback yielding a 4-5% increase in value when share count dropped 2.25% the past year.'
  • Gregg Thurman on Apple blows past expectations and its shares fall. What gives? - 'Buybacks add 4% to 5% to the value of AAPL each year. An annuity will do that without the wild gyrations in value.'
  • Gregg Thurman on Apple blows past expectations and its shares fall. What gives? - 'I am 99% certain the bounce is in the bank as a future credit but which isn’t being spent just yet With a good nights sleep under my belt, I find myself a bit ashamed of my response to WSs lack of reaction to Apple’s numbers. WS never (with regard to Apple/AAPL) reacts immediately to earnings reports and guidance. They always take the weekend to fully digest what their lying eyes have seen, what their lying ears have heard, before they trust them. Then, in order to not gross out the market WS will start buying slowly (to keep the price down longer so it can accrue more low cost shares), increasing volume marginally as the price of AAPL goes up, until you look behind you and you see that AAPL has increased by 8% or 10% without leaving a wake behind it. For all I know WS may even sell some shares during this period to weaken demand and prevent AAPL from heating up too fast.'
  • Rodney Avilla on Apple's got plenty of memory chips. What it lacks is access to the best foundries. - '“ cards close to their vest.” I agree with that approach. They don’t have to announce future plans, I’m just hoping that they have such plans.'
  • Michael Goldfeder on Apple's got plenty of memory chips. What it lacks is access to the best foundries. - 'Apple doesn’t just contract with their key suppliers, they invest in their growth by funding expansion of these particular outfits. One very recent example was Corning Glass where Apple made a significant $2.5 Billion investment to cover the future glass for all Apple products.'
  • Bill Fouche on Apple blows past expectations and its shares fall. What gives? - 'I have absorbed more useful insight from the comments in this thread than from all of the recent “talking heads” blather put together.'
  • Gregg Thurman on Saturday Apple video: Steve Jobs anticipates genAI (1983) - 'One of the best insights into how far ahead Steve was thinking.'
  • Joseph Bland on Apple blows past expectations and its shares fall. What gives? - 'Thanks SO much, Bart! Another interesting possibility: If Android products are going to become more expensive, then that leaves an opening for Apple to increase market share. Of course, that requires Apple to, paradoxically, increase production to take advantage of this increase in competitiveness. And guess which computer company is rolling in the dough required to increase its production capacity? Maybe a better word than paradoxically is ironically…. It certainly is ironic that the argument being used to keep the Apple Beachball submerged is in fact distracting attention from the probability of a large increase in Apple’s market share….'
  • Gregg Thurman on Apple's got plenty of memory chips. What it lacks is access to the best foundries. - 'As always, we’ll look at a range of options to deal with that. Therein lies the problem with most analysts, they think linearly. If it isn’t staring them in the face they can’t see it. Data center demand didn’t suddenly pop up out of nowhere. People, like Apple, would have recognized the trend well (years?) before Wall Street and the media made a big deal out of it. Somehow I think Apple has taken the easiest route to solve this problem. They’ve been stockpiling memory. How hard would that be? As large as the numbers are on Apple’s Balance Sheets, who would have noticed an increase in a singular inventory item attributable to memory chips over a 2 or 3 year period. The increased expenditures won’t show up on Apple’s Income Statement because they haven’t been sold yet. With the larger purchases Apple got better pricing (ever increasing margins over the last few years) and the best seat at the supply table. Data center builders demand would have masked Apple’s participation in foundry revenue growth. Apple’s purchases may have even caused supply problems for Google, META, MSFT, NVDA, Open AI, and others Remember, Apple isn’t reactive, it’s proactive.'
  • Joseph Bland on Apple blows past expectations and its shares fall. What gives? - 'ANOTHER great post from yesterday’s thread, Bart! You folks are really missing out out if you don’t review this thread!!'
  • Joseph Bland on Apple blows past expectations and its shares fall. What gives? - 'Excellent analysis, Bart! This is one of those 3.0 threads where it pays to go back and reread it – and even re-reread it!'
  • Joseph Bland on Apple's got plenty of memory chips. What it lacks is access to the best foundries. - 'I MUCH prefer Apple keeping their cards close to their vest. Now that has served them spectacularly!'
  • Joseph Bland on Apple's got plenty of memory chips. What it lacks is access to the best foundries. - 'Morning, Rodney. “I wish Apple had such plans.“ Why would they? Didn’t go well when they announced their Siri plans….'
  • Rodney Avilla on Apple's got plenty of memory chips. What it lacks is access to the best foundries. - '“having trouble getting enough production capacity for the most advanced processing chips that power its latest products.” Some look with bewilderment as to why tesla stock shoots up after reporting terrible numbers. Part of it, I believe, is Tesla’s plan to become independent [from Taiwan & eventually China] for advanced processing chips, making their own. I wish Apple had such plans.'
  • Jonny T on Apple blows past expectations and its shares fall. What gives? - 'As probably the earliest to call out Tommo, I’m delighted that today there can be few defenders left of his Machiavellian two faced little games. And as for the lack of a bounce, I am 99% certain the bounce is in the bank as a future credit but which isn’t being spent just yet. And as for the AAPL commentators, rules 1 to 10 are: – Never ever give praise alone, always balance anything positive as many worrying ‘what if’ negatives as you can. “THE EYEBALL ECONOMY” And how great we have PED letting us navigate out of it with him!'
  • Robert Stack on Apple's got plenty of memory chips. What it lacks is access to the best foundries. - 'IMO, Dan Gallagher and Malcolm Owen are two of the best over at AI. And of course DED is legendary, but seems to have retreated from writing his memorable missives.'
  • Bart Yee on Apple blows past expectations and its shares fall. What gives? - 'On the memory front, Martin and Wall Street keep fretting about memory makers like Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron and Kioxia raising prices as they “artificially” restrict supply by saying they are pivoting to higher production of HBM AI server driven memory. Will this affect Apple, eventually? If the all consumer facing memory production changes hold, no additional capacity is brought online, and the price increases stick, yes, of course they will be a concern for Apple. But because of Apple’s dominant position in premium smartphones and that iPhone users will buy up in memory, Apple has more buying and price “leverage” for quantity ordering than any single or grouped Android makers. Also, since Apple eliminated the 128gb tier NAND Storage memory in all but the 16e, Apple can stock more of just 256gb, 513gb, and 1TB pieces, and order less different parts, leaving Android to fight over 64GB and 128gb memory to save money. Since Apple already “raised prices” by making the 256gb tier the base or standard across all new models, and 1) kept prices the same on base iPhone 17, creating a great value, and 2) essentially raising the base price on the Pro and Pro Max models to $1099 & $1199 respectively, Apple has neutralized or at least normalized the sticker shock already. Since we just saw Apple print an $85B+ iPhone Quarter where the ASP was variously calculated at $1011 (Counterpoint smartphone Revenue roundup for the Q4CY2025), and from $1028 to $1049 by me, it’s quite obvious Apple upgraders, buyers and some switchers had no problems buying “up” on the prices charged for base and upgraded memory configurations. What about DDR5 and LPDDR5/5X DRAM, particularly high-capacity modules as used in smartphones? High end smartphones particularly use this RAM and it has already begun to rise precipitously. TH Roh of Samsung has hinted Samsung may need to raise prices of all goods with memory, and Counterpoint and others have said between 6-8%. Now many analysts suggest memory could cost as much as 20% of the cost of smartphones, but midrange and low price tiers see memory as a higher percentage than premium models. I suspect Apple has already preordered as much memory as they can get for this year’s production and some for partial iPhone 18 production. Also, since Apple silicon and iOS/MacOS works so well together, Apple does not have to cut back on DRAM to still work very efficiently. Android makers may decide to reduce RAM to maintain prices, or otherwise face increasing prices but risk losing sales. If and when Apple must raise prices, they may not lose much in sales because of the spending power of its users.'
  • David Emery on Apple blows past expectations and its shares fall. What gives? - 'Tesla looks to be getting out of the car business, and Musk wants to merge it with SpaceX. Seems Wall St will bless whatever Musk comes up with.'
  • David Drinkwater on Saturday Apple video: Steve Jobs anticipates genAI (1983) - 'I still think back to the Knowledge Navigator video. Siri isn’t quite there yet, but with a little boost from AI, I think that the Knowledge Navigator is essentially real within 24 months. It would be kinda neat to see Apple release it formally.'
  • Greg Lippert on Saturday Apple video: Steve Jobs anticipates genAI (1983) - 'Ahead of his time.'
  • David Drinkwater on Apple blows past expectations and its shares fall. What gives? - 'Here’s a little color on the AAPL vs TSLA discussion: On January 24, AAPL shares sat at 248.04. On January 24, TSLA shares sat at 449.06. On January 31, AAPL shares sit at 259.48. On January 31, TSLA shares sit at 430.41. I think the answer to the “what gives” question with respect to these too stocks is that some (incorrect) expectations were baked in before the prints. In Tesla, there were fears baked in and the (admittedly horrible) results were “not as bad as expected”, and in Apple, the results were just plain better than expected. But the pies had been baked (???) by Tuesday morning, before the prints came out. So now we do have a couple weeks to kick back and see that a more rational reaction may look like. And holders, as opposed to traders, should be more than patient both to watch and to act. So we’ll see.'
  • Bart Yee on Apple blows past expectations and its shares fall. What gives? - 'Laura Martin of Needham voices her concern for Apple over these two issues: a) AAPL subcontracting its AI future to GOOGL/Gemini; and b) margin compression in FY26 from rapidly rising memory and NAND costs… “AAPL is partnering with GOOGL to build its AI foundation model. We see this as selling its soul/future to the devil. We believe it should have paid Anthropic 2x-4x more and kept its data hidden from GOOGL, its primary competitor for iPhones.” Regarding Google Gemini, Laura is talking out of both sides of her mouth, if not her brain. Here’s a recent interview on CNBC where she’s asked what she thinks of Alphabet and Gemini, and its partnership with Apple: youtu dot be/-M-OM6i-Kp4?si=_JHzpQa90Oj6eBHr “Google is going to be one of the winners with Gemini…because its model has raced ahead of OpenAI’s model…and because they’ve got this chip of their own that’s very efficient, and they’re running a closed ecosystem ((gee, where did they copy that business strategy from???)) , AND Google pays Apple $20B for default search on iOS so what Apple pays them for Gemini is just a reduction in what Google will have to pay Apple.” “Yes, Google and Apple working together is a huge concentration of power but the courts did find Google is a monopoly and they did nothing about it, so I guess it’s fine…so they should keep moving forward because these companies are worth more together than separately…” Now I get her concern that Apple should have developed its own to run with or used Anthropic, maybe, on privacy or competition grounds, but really, shouldn’t Apple use the best partner and model it can find? And Apple can put its own measures in place with Google to secure data and privacy concerns. This does not preclude Apple continuing to work on its own models and data centers. This is much like the Google Maps business model. Also, while Google and its Android is a “competitor” in smartphones, it’s a necessary competitor in the marketplace, but a relatively feeble one when it comes to Apple’s marketplace, namely the premium and ultra premium smartphone, tablet, wearables, and even PC/Notebooks segments, both in sales numbers, and especially revenue generation. Remember, without Android and Chromebooks, Apple would have been declared a de facto Monopoly long ago in many areas (still is even though its consumer choice). As for the fees crossing back and forth, heh, Apple’s payment to Google is just $1B and probably based on future usage which will ramp up over time I suppose. However, AI competition, continued availability of ChatGTP (and others) for Apple users, and the general nature of LLM oversupply and shakeouts will likely keep the costs and fees down, especially if Apple develops its own LLM models and servers over time (in a much more measured and thoughtful process which is less CapEx intensive / explosive) or could pivot to or add AI options. Meanwhile, Google’s core search/ad business in large part still depends heavily on Apple’s coveted iOS user base’s access, usage AND spending/buying power. It would not surprise me one iota that Google, like app developers, probably makes 2-3X more from iOS users on search than it does on all its Android and PC platforms. Why? Because if Android users primarily buy cheaper and less expensive smartphones, their budgets are limited, spending power is limited, and ad rates have less ROI for advertisers. That’s precisely why Google pays Apple ever increasing amounts of money to maintain its Search position and relationship with Apple. For Google, it’s a necessary business expense to generate revenue on a competing platform. For Apple, it giving its users a choice many have already chosen. Frankly, I wouldn’t doubt Apple’s fee to Google will already be covered by the next FY contract with Google search, precisely why Services revenue keeps growing, while AI expenditures are well controlled. BTW, Martin/Needham have a Hold $330 rating on Google, at a current 33.43 PE.'
  • Robert Paul Leitao on Apple blows past expectations and its shares fall. What gives? - 'In my observation it takes about three weeks for the market to adjust Apple’s share price to a level that reflects the most recent quarterly results and management’s forward forecasts. It’s been only a day. If you have strong conviction Apple is undervalued post earnings, buy the stock.'
  • Bill Donahue on Apple's blowout Q1 2026: What the analysts are saying - 'His response actually made me laugh. Of course Tim Long has continued to insist AAPL is a strong sell… but still marking his target price higher! He’s the perfect trailing indicator, and must be proud that his prediction is consistently quite accurate, albeit a year late.'
  • David Drinkwater on Apple blows past expectations and its shares fall. What gives? - 'So AAPL finishes at 259.48 vs Thursday morning’s PED report of “pain” at 257.50. Any chance that Max Pain really was pulling the strings? And that Monday, the strings snap on the slingshot … or the beach ball bounces (I like the alliteration, but the image of the ball rocketing out of the water is also quite appealing) … or as Michael G suggests, Apple starts to wade into the AAPL swimming pool next week? Could be fun to watch (get the popcorn), but It’s probably best just to stay patient if you can and stay on your bounce horse.'
  • David Drinkwater on Apple blows past expectations and its shares fall. What gives? - 'I dunno, Joe. AMZN shares that I acquired 12 years ago are up 15X. That’s a 12-year CAGR of 25%. But I guess if you wait long enough, you can fool anyone….'
  • John Konopka on Apple's blowout Q1 2026 in five easy charts - 'Interesting. If you take the Q1 EPS shown in the chart since 2020 and chart it the linear trend line makes a good fit. R**2 of about 0.9.'
  • John Konopka on Apple's blowout Q1 2026 in five easy charts - 'No question, memory has gone up by multiples. I wonder how much of the total cost of goods is memory?'
  • David Emery on Apple's blowout Q1 2026 in five easy charts - 'Do you think the reason Apple didn’t significantly pop today is because they did NOT predict memory price impacts? Could that reflect a belief on the part of some ANALysts that Apple is lying about the memory impact? Or just that Apple is too dumb to figure out that soon memory will soon have significant impacts that Apple hasn’t taken into account? Well, it’s as plausible an explanation as any, I suppose…'
  • Darren DMW on Apple's blowout Q1 2026 in five easy charts - 'Lucky I am a big enough Neil Young fan to get the joke. Very good.'