Recent Comments

  • Bart Yee on Premarket: Apple was red, turned green - 'It might be Newsom’s hand but it’s Ive’s company and reputation to the fore, and both he and Ferraro signed off on it to bring it public. While a bold departure, it’s risky, but then isn’t all art that way? I’m sure the designers of the Vision Pro felt the same way.'
  • Bart Yee on Premarket: Apple was red, turned green - 'While this design “might” appeal to new or younger millennial millionaires who would compare the Ferrari EV to other EV designs, the Ferrari faithful, older and fairly fixed in perspective of previous ICE Ferrari’s see none of the swoopy, sensual curves, or sharp angular, even outrageous design cues that says you have something unique, rare, and most of all, desirable. Oh, it may have breathtaking technology, best in class interior, and wonderful performance, but if it has no eye appeal as an emotional (and very expensive) purchase, then it really turns out to be just another EV, almost, heavens, Germanic in execution. The fact that it carries few, if any design cues with any previous Ferrari, road or track, may be the point, but it won’t win over older and current buyers. And that may be the point of Ferrari carries on “courageously”, they may be trying to broaden the appeal of Ferrari to a wholly different audience, which is risky. Porsche tries that with the 914 (sales successful, but derided at the time, became a classic in the 2000’s), the front engines water cooled 928/924/944/968 series (great technology, so so sales), then gasp, blasphemy, started making SUV Cayennes!! But that actually worked, people eventually bought them in droves, old (some) and new buyers, and spawned even crossover sized Macan. What did work was Porsche stubbornly kept design cues to other Porsche’s intact, even advertising to that lineage, so that you can instantly say “That’s a Porsche!” And Porsche built EV Hybrid sports cars (918) before embarking on performance hybrid SUV’s, and the very powerful All Electric Taycan with clearly Porsche styling. Unfortunately Ive’s design could have been ordered by ANY Chinese, Asian, or mass European carmaker and it probably would be well received, but if it was a Ferrari, Lamborghini or other specialty maker, it will get scrutinized heavily and fight against the company’s own history. Apple has faced the same with the 5C, SE, mini, Plus, iPhone Air (still evolving), Vision Pro, FineWoven, Magic Mouse, and to some extent, HomePods and Mac Pro, so nobody’s perfect.'
  • Bart Yee on Premarket: Apple was red, turned green - 'Additional from the Autoblog article regarding the Luce impact on Ferrari stock: “And then there’s the stock markets’ reaction to it. Ferrari shares (RACE) fell almost 8.4% today in Milan and roughly 4% in New York. The sharp decline is attributed by analysts cited by CNBC to a mix of “design hate” and the classic market adage of “travel and arrive,” where a stock’s price steadily increases in anticipation of a major event, only to drop or stagnate once the event actually happens.” “But there may be more to it. The markets’ reaction to the Ferrari Luce reveal may also have something to do with the fact that the Italian luxury brand is placing a bet in the EV space even as other luxury carmakers, such as Porsche and Lamborghini, have backtracked on plans to launch new EVs due to weak demand. Related to this point, some investors may fear that if the Ferrari Luce does not sell well, Ferrari will have to assume losses derived from high research and development costs, which in turn will affect its profitability.” The author is Romanian and “Travel and Arrival” is a British financial term essentially the same as “buy the rumor, sell the news”. Ferrari stock RACE is certainly feeling what AAPL has experienced with WWDC and iPhone intros except Luce acceptance and sales is very much uncertain at this point. Who knows, it may end up being a “Ferrari Electric vehicle Concept Car” if they don’t get enough preorders. From Gemini: “The exterior of the Ferrari Luce was designed by the outside design firm LoveFrom, led by renowned product designers Jony Ive and Marc Newson. The LoveFrom collective collaborated closely with Ferrari’s Chief Design Officer, Flavio Manzoni, and the internal Ferrari Design Studio to shape the radical look of the brand’s first EV. Because of Jony Ive and Marc Newson’s industrial design background—most notably their work at Apple—the Luce’s exterior features a highly minimalist, aerodynamic, and heavily rounded wedge design compared to traditional combustion-engine Ferraris.“ IMO, I’ve was probably chosen because of his rep AND probably had some designs in mind from Project Titan drawings or mockups. But Ferrari’s ex-CEO, who vowed never to have an electric Ferrari on his watch, probably said it best, “they are destroying the myth. I hope they take off the Prancing Horse.” And there’s the rub – a historic brand with history and multitudes of iconic designs and looks farmed out/collaborated w/Ive, Newson’s Apple-like minimalism and Ferrari signed off on this, rather “generic looking” design. A scan of Apple News headlines says: “Angry Ferrari Fans say…It Looks Too Californian” – LA Times “This Ferrari Should Have Been A Volkswagen” – The Verge And interestingly: “Ferrari’s Electric Car – Divisiveness is the Point” – The Economist Continued'
  • Gregg Thurman on Premarket: Apple was red, turned green - '” For now, he can choose between satellite and 5G terrestrial radio internet.” For over a year I relied exclusively on 5G cellular for internet connectivity. Last month I finally got TDS Fiber in my 130 yo neighborhood. Speed test on my WiFi says I’m getting about 400 gig up and down now. Except for being a little bit more reliable I’m not seeing a discernible speed boost. Cellular for my iPad cost me $10/month. TDS Fiber WiFi costs me ~$50/month. I’ll be interested in seeing what satellite service, when it’s available, will cost.'
  • David Emery on Apple at $310.85: May's ninth record close - 'Insert your favorite recording of Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi” here….'
  • Steven Philips on Apple at $310.85: May's ninth record close - 'It clearly needs a shopping center and big parking lot! Maybe a Trump Tower Hotel to attract more tourists! 🙂'
  • David Emery on Apple at $310.85: May's ninth record close - '(Nothing about Apple in this post….) The towns along the Croatian coast have always had a very risky history from attacks from the interior. The Romans fended off several serious revolts from Dalmatia. Arguably, that’s in part due to the position of the Balkans at the intersection of Europe and Asia, with invaders/migrations from Asia overwhelming colonies settled from invaders from the West (including Greece.) Geography is history, sometimes.'
  • Gregg Thurman on Premarket: Apple was red, turned green - '” Why are they called “electric” vehicles?” To differentiate them from gasoline powered vehicles? You don’t need to differentiate flashlights or radios because they’ve never used gasoline to power them.'
  • David Emery on Premarket: Apple was red, turned green - 'I wonder about American Tower with the potential for Amazon to challenge StarLink for satellite internet. A friend has StarLink in his new house, but will switch to land-line fiber when that shows up probably within 2 years. For now, he can choose between satellite and 5G terrestrial radio internet.'
  • Robert Paul Leitao on Premarket: Apple was red, turned green - 'Today’s trading session is now history and Apple made history just a few minutes ago by setting yet another new all-time closing high of $310.85, up $2.52 or 0.82% on the day.'
  • Robert Paul Leitao on Premarket: Apple was red, turned green - 'Michael: I just sent you a DM through the Apple 3.0 Slack group with a link to a Barron’s article titled, “6 High-Yielding BDCs Safe Enough for Dividend Investors”. I found the article of interest. I am partial to select names in the financial sector, especially a few of the majors that may be involved in the huge IPOs coming to market over the next several months.'
  • Robert Paul Leitao on Premarket: Apple was red, turned green - 'Into the last half hour of trading and Apple is on track for a record close. The shares are currently changing hands at $309.81, up $1.48. While that’s not as pretty of a number as the all-time high of $313.26 set earlier today, it’s a gain on yesterdays’ closing price and reflect market’s confidence in the announcements to be made next month at WWDC 2026. The S&P 500 is marginally in the green with Applovin being the standard bearer on the day. The shares are up 9.87% at $565.01.'
  • Ben Gepp on Premarket: Apple was red, turned green - 'On the Luce… The shrill voice of mockery. No objectivity or critique. Reminds me of when the iPhone was released. I’m not sure quite what to make of it yet (which is possibly an indication that I will come to highly regard it) I think all should see how it sells. As for the designer, looks more the hand of Marc Newson than Ive.'
  • Robert Paul Leitao on Premarket: Apple was red, turned green - 'Bart: Thank you for the thoughtful response. The “EVs” of today use stored energy in the batteries to power the cars and those batteries are charged from many different sources from fossil fuels, to wind, solar and nuclear sources, etc.. Many different fuel sources were also used in the mining and manufacture of the components (including the batteries) as well as the assembly of the vehicles. For my purposes and maybe for my purposes only I see them as battery-powered cars. Without the batteries there is no power to the vehicles. If I’m breaching some kind of geek or tech etiquette in my description, I mean no slight or harm to those involved. If “EVs” were tethered directly to an electric cord and the cord was necessary to power movement of the cars I would consider them “electric vehicles” similar to the “electric” lawn mover I used to cut the lawn as a kid. When someone inadvertently ran over the cord – it happened from time to time – the mower would stop. It didn’t have a battery to power it like today’s “EVs.”'
  • Gregg Thurman on Premarket: Apple was red, turned green - 'Upgraded my JUL $190/$195 Call Spreads (160) to JUL $300/305 Call Spreads (190) this morning. I did this based on the continued strength on AAPL’s intraday low upward trend line that now exceeds $308. I now hold 219 JUL $300/$305 Call Spreads. I continue to trade within the confines of my original capital budget ($42,500).'
  • Steven Philips on Premarket: Apple was red, turned green - 'Well, I guess you could say it’s “Luce-ly” a Ferrari. 🙂'
  • Michael Goldfeder on Premarket: Apple was red, turned green - 'On the topic of Jony Ive and his EV Ferrari that he designed, for those of you who have Apple Newstand+, there is an article in Barron’s dated May 26, 2026 regarding this vehicle and in particular this rather derogatory snippet: “Social-media users panned the new EV, which bears little resemblance to some of Ferrari’s best-known supercars. (It also isn’t red in the picture.) Some compared the Luce to budget EVs such as Nissan’s Leaf, which sells for about $30,000.” Ouch.'
  • Gregg Thurman on Why BofA Securities raised its Apple price target $50 to $380 - 'Joseph, what’s the average annual gain since 2010?'
  • Gregg Thurman on Why BofA Securities raised its Apple price target $50 to $380 - 'Bill, yours is a great summary of the weakness in “AI” revenue assumptions. How on God’s green little acre Wall Street made the financial calculations that said, “Spending $200+ Billion to develop a new, untested product, with zero history of revenue generation is smart”. But it wasn’t just one firm that drank the Kool-Aid, it was several, meaning that even after successfully developing this new technology, you’re going to immediately have competition, and what does competition do? It drives prices down. The goal of all the “AI” companies is to sell tokens. In any market there is a finite demand for the product. What happens when the demand beyond “early adopters” fails to appear? I think we are in the “early adopters” stage, but instead of that group influencing the main body of large scale purchasers to join them, they are discovering painful truths, such as: humans may be cheaper than “AI”. I think, as I have for a long time, that data center “AI” is a house of cards. Successful “AI” will occur on device or localized servers. In both cases Apple is the clear leader. Excepting Apple, nobody has mobile/desktop products to operate on-device. Excepting Apple, nobody has an OS capable of running on-device. Excepting Apple, nobody has a Server (Mac Mini/Mac Studio) to operate a localized “AI” (both of which are back ordered 90+ days). Apple is going to reduce the TAM for “AI” users with its on-device strategy. Now add privacy to your “AI” success formula. How so many smart people failed to see the financial limitations of data center LLMs is beyond me. It’s only conjecture but I think they were seduced by what a properly functioning “AI” could do, to the point they didn’t do a financial analysis of what it would cost and where the revenue was going to come from to pay for it, only to discover that humans may be cheaper. Rather than being behind the industry Apple did those calculations and chose on-device, an area where it excels. Apple Intelligence improves the functionality of OSX and the features/apps it supports. Revenue to develop Apple Intelligence and the silicon that powers it is parsed into every device that Apple sells. In on-device “AI” Apple has no competition, to the contrary Apple has pricing power, and is using that power to attack the competitions’ only competitive edge – price. How long before the data center developers recognize their error and decide to change direction? Will Microsoft and Google be up to the challenge of upgrading Windows/Android to support on-device? Will the chip makers (Intel, AMD, Samsung, Qualcomm) have the time to catch up with Apple’s silicon? Will anybody have the capital resources after investing so heavily in data center and LLM’s to change gears? My money is following Apple/AAPL, not for the next 2-3 years, but for a long time after that.'
  • Bart Yee on Premarket: Apple was red, turned green - 'Robert said: “Why are they called “electric” vehicles? I don’t call my battery-powered flashlight an electric flashlight or my battery-powered radio an electric radio.“ That’s because a flashlight or radio with batteries were never powered by gasoline or engines to generate their power source. A lantern or candle’s effect and purpose (light) was originally powered by tallow, wax, or hydrocarbon fuels (kerosene, whale oil, naphtha, etc.) so were simply called candles and lanterns, power source not specified, but if you want to use “modern battery powered” versions of those, they are called electric or battery candles and electric or battery powered lanterns, all to clarify what their power source is. The automotive field referred to gasoline engines as Internal combustion engines till recently because they all were, but when fuel injection, Turbochargers and superchargers became common for air intake, those appellations were added, as were variable valve timing and other mechanical and ultimately computer controlled enhancements. Diesel engines had their own combustion cycle dynamics as well as fuel source, hence called diesels. Then hybrid, plug in hybrids, fully electric, fuel cell, and who know what next will be needed to specify to the buying and using public what energy source besides gas or diesel engine cars and trucks will be. Yes, I’m being very pedantic, but accuracy and precision in medical, electronics, automotive, and language usage is important, if just to be sure we can agree on what is being talked about and communicated, instead of just making assumptions, and word usage gets generalized and diluted. If some in the general population think that make us sound like techies, know it alls, or elites who want to lord it over “the average joe” or common folks, sorry about that, we took education seriously, took advantage of learning opportunities, have genuine interest in learning more, gaining skills, and becoming reasonable experts or at least knowledgeable in many things, most of all a professional career. We didn’t want to be lowest common denominators. If that sounds arrogant, sorry again, that’s a you problem for that interpretation (not you Robert and other members here). TL:DR – Words and meanings matter. Use it or lose it.'
  • Bill Donahue on Premarket: Apple was red, turned green - 'I saw some of the lambasting of the new Ferrari EV but not that it was designed by Ive. Why on Earth would Ferrari do that, given the wild success of pretty much every new car it’s ever released??'
  • Bill Donahue on Why BofA Securities raised its Apple price target $50 to $380 - 'Does anyone have any idea what financial assumptions are behind the estimates of significant revenue increases from consumer AI access/use? And not just for Apple – for all the tech co’s. Given that all of the data so far makes clear that people aren’t willing to pay for access to LLMs and more and more big corporations are realizing that paying to introduce significant AI into running their businesses is costing more than it’s increasing revenues (Starbucks being the latest), AI as a financial boon for tech co’s seems to me to be more like a religious belief than anything grounded in reality. It all seems to pretend that people just have extra money sitting in their pockets doing nothing that they are just waiting to spend on AI. It all still seems to me to be just the next disruptive tech that the big tech co’s are pushing in hopes of getting a more favourable chunk of ad revenues, meaning basically a zero-sum race.'
  • Robert Paul Leitao on Premarket: Apple was red, turned green - 'The DJIA is in the green this morning, powered higher by P&G which is up 3.31% at $147.69 and Nike (finally!) which is up 2.68% at $46.15. Even Home Depot is rising on this Wednesday morning! The shares are up 2.27% at $317.60. 21 of the 30 components are in the green today, including Apple which is ahead $4.33 or 1.40% at $312.66. The shares set a new all-time high of $313.26 per share in early trading.'
  • Michael Goldfeder on Premarket: Apple was red, turned green - '@Robert: Interesting equities to be following. Thank you for the list. One of my “Apple Dividends” stock has been on a tear as of late that has been very enjoyable: AMD. Apparently, they are the stock market’s version of “Avis” (We try harder as we’re # 2) to Nvidia (“Hertz”). I haven’t purchased anything for the last few quarters with my recent Apple dividends. I’ll follow these on your “list” and keep my eyes open. Thanks as always for your very informative postings.'
  • Joseph Bland on Premarket: Apple was red, turned green - 'Hi, Michael. Yep. Excerpt From “Former Ferrari Boss Slams Luce EV: “Take The Prancing Horse Off”” Dan Mihalascu Autoblog https://apple.news/ATSbHot-XRY-w4ucXThrSrg This material may be protected by copyright. “Former Ferrari Boss Slams Luce EV: “Take The Prancing Horse Off” The day after Ferrari unveiled its first-ever electric vehicle, it is becoming quite clear that the Luce is the most controversial production car in Maranello’s history. It’s not just the fact that it’s battery electric; the design is also very uncharacteristic for the brand. It looks so unlike any other Ferrari in history that you’d be hard pressed to recognize it as a Ferrari if you stripped away the prancing horse badges.” Horsepower vs kiloWatts…. Also, folks forget that batteries STORE energy, not generate it. A pure battery care is as clean and fuel efficient as the process for both generating the energy AND distributing it. There are no free lunches.'
  • Robert Paul Leitao on Premarket: Apple was red, turned green - 'Disclaimer: I am not recommending or endorsing any equity for purchase. I’m continuing a conversation with Michael Goldfeder about equities other than Apple I find of interest for reasons that may be unique to me and my personal interests. @Michael Goldfeder Below are a few of the equities outside of Apple I consider of interest today. This is not a complete list. It’s a sample of names I have under review for purchase at this time: Blue Owl
 Eversource Energy
 Bristol-Myers American Tower Federal Realty DTE Energy In my research these equities have high ratings and are attractive total return candidates for investment. Again, my criteria is highly subjective and each investor should perform their own due diligence on the suitability of any investment for purchase based on their individual needs and objectives.'
  • David Emery on Premarket: Apple was red, turned green - 'I’m chuckling to myself thinking about that “voice improvement technology” added to the Trump Phone….'
  • Steven Philips on Premarket: Apple was red, turned green - 'A better way? Give it to me! I’ll use it wisely. I promise! 🙂'
  • Robert Paul Leitao on Premarket: Apple was red, turned green - 'Michael: Why are they called “electric” vehicles? I don’t call my battery-powered flashlight an electric flashlight or my battery-powered radio an electric radio. Apparently Ferrari is using advanced techniques to “augment” the sound of the car for drivers. Maybe the Jony Ive designed phone will augment the voices of callers so each person sounds more pleasant to the phone owner. It will take something special to compete with the iPhone.'
  • Rodney Avilla on Premarket: Apple was red, turned green - '“Looking forward to the phone Jony Ive will be releasing to compete with Apple’s iPhone.” love it! Made my day'