Recent Comments

  • Bart Yee on Laura Martin: Apple's existential risk - 'IMO, it could be the other way around, when OpenAI’s management implodes from massive spending promises, tens if not hundreds of billions of debt, datacenter over capacity and excessively steep and overly long term energy contracts, and much less revenue than ever forecast aft due to commodization of AI models. I dare say Apple “could” purchase OpenAI or sign favorable long term usage contracts with them, but I’m confident Apple wouldn’t want OpenAI, especially if Sam Altman or his management team is still there.'
  • Robert Paul Leitao on This week's Apple trading strategies (7/27-7/31/26) - 'Heading toward Monday morning and Apple is up $2.98 overnight at $336 per share.'
  • Bart Yee on Apple says Micron's profit margins are too high - 'So here Apple is practicing disciplined price hikes where needed, and trying to wait out the hyperscaler build out and likely inevitable bust. If Apple management thinks it can wait out another 18 months and then ANY slowdown would trigger a memory price pullback, then Apple would be in the catbird/driver’s seat, ready to pounce on slack demand and dropped prices. Meanwhile, management can wrestle with the dual positive outcomes of raising prices and maintaining revenues and margins, or reset prices down when costs come down and take market share and possibly decimate or reduce competition. The latter might cause market injuries, reduce competition, and cause others to claim Apple is undercutting or selling “at a loss” in order to take share away, thereby suggesting Apple “should” be charging higher prices all the time, otherwise they compete too well and “unfairly”. Apple would get inevitable flack either way, right?'
  • Bart Yee on Apple says Micron's profit margins are too high - '“Apple has not yet raised prices on iPhones, particularly in China. But’s it’s likely they will raise prices with at least the iPhone 18 Pro models and new iPhone Ultra will start a bit higher than originally planned? What would happen if Apple reduced their Mac Neo, MacBooks and iPad increases back to prior levels in late 2027 to early 2028 if memory prices backed off?” Your logic regarding the upcoming hardware lineup is highly accurate. While Apple has managed to shield the current baseline models in highly competitive regions like China, maintaining the status quo is increasingly untenable. The iPhone 18 Pro and “Ultra” Reality The global memory crunch has altered Apple’s launch math. Compounding this, TSMC’s transitioning to next-generation node architectures carries unprecedented fabrication premiums. • The Pro Hike: A price increase for the upcoming iPhone 18 Pro models is practically guaranteed. Apple needs to bake in higher baseline margins to insulate against multi-year raw material volatility. • The Ultra Premium: The heavily rumored iPhone Ultra—expected to introduce a radical form factor—will likely launch at a higher price ceiling than Apple originally calculated to absorb these production realities. If Apple Rolls Back Prices in Late 2027/2028: The Market Impact Apple’s recent “chip-flation” moves—like the emergency $100 increase on the budget MacBook Neo and the $150–$300 hikes across iPads and MacBook Pros—were explicitly blamed on the AI data center memory squeeze. If memory prices drop significantly in late 2027 to early 2028, and Apple takes the highly unusual step of reversing these hikes to baseline levels, it would trigger a massive ripple effect: 1. A Total Collapse of the Mid-Range Windows/Android Market • When Apple launched the MacBook Neo at an aggressive entry-level price, it sent shockwaves through the budget PC ecosystem. The subsequent $100 increase gave PC makers a brief moment to breathe. • If Apple rolls the MacBook Neo line back down to its target entry price (e.g., $599 standard / $499 education) right as memory gluts hit, it will decimate competing Chromebooks and mid-range Windows laptops. • Windows OEMs, who lack Apple’s ecosystem margins, would find it impossible to match that build quality at that price point. 2. The Burst of a Massive Consumer Upgrader Bubble Consumers are pushing back against the current wave of price hikes. A highly publicized price reduction by Apple in late 2027 would unleash a historic hardware upgrade supercycle. Millions of users who sat out the expensive hardware generations would immediately flood the market to buy MacBooks and iPads at their newly corrected, legacy price points. 3. Strategic “Value Packing” Instead of Pure Drops Wall Street detests seeing a company drop its Average Selling Price (ASP). Even if Apple officially rolls back the baseline prices on entry-level hardware like the MacBook Neo or standard iPads, they will likely alter the higher-end tiers. • For the MacBook Pro and iPad Pro lineups, instead of a direct cash discount, Apple is highly likely to keep the slightly higher price anchor but double the base configurations. • They would confidently market an M-series Mac at the higher price but make 24GB or 32GB of RAM the standard entry configuration, effectively normalizing the price hike through massive spec boosts. 4. Heavy Pressure on Apple’s Supplier Ecosystem If Apple drops consumer pricing, it means Tim Cook has aggressively squeezed memory suppliers like Samsung and SK Hynix during the glut to ensure Apple maintains its gold-standard 45%+ gross margins. Apple would use its immense cash reserves to sign massive, multi-year prepayment contracts at rock-bottom rates, completely starving smaller hardware competitors of cheap RAM supply.” If you’d like to trace how this might play out, we can look closer at what a baseline 12GB or 16GB RAM spec would mean for the capabilities of future MacBook Neo revisions, or map out TSMC’s expected chip fabrication costs heading into the late 2027 cycle. What direction would you like to take?'
  • Lou Falek on Inviting friends of the blog to Apple’s Q3 2026 Earnings Smackdown - 'I have heard this proverb stated as “Better to remain quiet and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt”.'
  • Bart Yee on Apple says Micron's profit margins are too high - '“what are the odds the hyperscaler infrastructure boom begins to slow or decline and when? if Apple sees relief from high memory prices, would they moderate or reduce their prices back to previous profitable levels or keep prices up and provide “more base memory” to justify keeping prices higher?“ “Timeline of a Hyperscaler Slowdown The probability that the hyperscaler infrastructure boom slows or enters a cyclical decline by the late 2020s is moderate to high (roughly 65% to 75%), with the inflection point most likely occurring between mid-2027 and early 2028. • The Reality of Overbuilding: Hyper-scalers are currently building infrastructure for anticipated future demand rather than current software revenues. History shows that every major infrastructure deployment phase (e.g., the 1990s telecom fiber boom, early 2010s cloud buildouts) inevitably experiences a digestion period where buying pauses so software utilization can catch up to physical hardware capacity. • Capital Intensity Limits: Companies cannot spend 50%+ of their revenue on capital expenditures indefinitely without seeing a proportional spike in net profits. By 2027, the pressure from public markets to show massive enterprise software returns on these AI investments will peak, likely forcing a tactical pullback in hardware ordering. Apple’s Pricing Strategy: Lower Prices vs. More Base Memory If memory contract prices collapse, Apple will almost certainly keep consumer prices higher and provide “more base memory” rather than lowering the retail price of their devices. Apple practically never cuts the introductory price of its hardware lines from one generation to the next unless there is an unprecedented global economic depression. Instead, they use a highly calculated playbook to manage margin relief. ((Here we would see whether Ternus, Khan and Parekh thinks otherwise, within the board’s and Cook’s agreement)) Why Apple Won’t Cut Retail Prices • The “Price Anchor” Effect: Apple spends years establishing consumer acceptance of premium price tiers (e.g., a $999 baseline iPhone Pro or a $1,599 baseline MacBook Pro). Lowering these baseline retail prices damages the perceived premium nature of the brand and sets a dangerous precedent that hurts long-term revenue predictability. • Absorbing Other Cost Increases: While memory prices may plummet, other advanced components—specifically TSMC’s cutting-edge 2nm and 1.4nm logic nodes, advanced packaging (CoWoS), and custom camera optics—are continuously getting more expensive. Apple will use the savings from cheap memory to offset the rising costs of these other complex components to protect its overall 45%+ gross profit margins. The Playbook: Spec Upgrades as a Value Proposition Instead of passing cash savings directly back to you, Apple will use cheap, abundant memory to eliminate the biggest consumer complaints about its hardware specifications. This allows them to proudly market “more value for the same price”: • The “Generous Baseline” Marketing: If 8GB of RAM becomes a bottleneck for advanced Apple Intelligence features, Apple can transition baseline Macs to 16GB or 24GB, and baseline iPhones to 12GB or 16GB. This silences critics who complain about Apple being stingy with specs, while costing Apple virtually nothing extra because of the global memory glut. • Cheaper Upgrade Steps: Apple currently charges a notorious $200 premium to upgrade a Mac from 8GB to 16GB of unified memory—a massive profit driver. In a memory surplus, they might not lower the base price of the machine, but they may make the higher tier upgrades cheaper (e.g., giving you 32GB instead of 16GB for that same $200 jump) to incentivize users to buy higher-end models. Ultimately, a memory crash is a massive win for Apple’s bottom line. They will let the hardware specs catch up to the price tag, keeping the extra profit for themselves while marketing it as a massive upgrade for the consumer. Would you like to examine Apple’s historical gross margin changes during the last major memory glut, or look into the exact hardware requirements expected for the next generation of Apple Intelligence models?'
  • Bart Yee on Apple says Micron's profit margins are too high - '“If the hyperscaler infrastructure bubble begins to falter, it would fundamentally reset the current dynamic of the global semiconductor market. Currently, major tech firms are pouring hundreds of billions into artificial intelligence, causing a massive memory supply crunch. The exact timeline, near-term memory demand shift, and specific implications for Apple and its hardware line highlight the potential consequences of such a correction. 1. Timing: When a Falter Would Happen An infrastructure pullback would most likely materialize in mid-to-late 2027. • The Trigger: Hyperscalers (Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta, and AWS) are projected to approach $1.1 trillion in aggregate capital expenditure in 2027, with capital intensity swallowing an unprecedented 45% to 57% of their revenues. • The Revenue Wall: Wall Street is already demanding immediate enterprise AI revenue to justify these runaway budgets. By mid-2027, if customer monetization (via software or agentic AI apps) fails to yield a clear return on investment, boards will force a sharp, defensive spending correction. • Supply Convergence: This coincides precisely with 2027–2028, when massive new semiconductor fabrication plants (fabs) currently under construction finally start churning out commercial silicon. The intersection of slashing demand and surging supply would pop the bubble. 2. Post-Bubble Near-Term Memory Demand If hyperscalers freeze or reduce their data center builds, global memory demand will drop immediately and violently. • The HBM Collapse: Artificial intelligence training relies entirely on High Bandwidth Memory (HBM). Because HBM production is incredibly complex, it consumes physical silicon wafer capacity at a brutal 3:1 ratio compared to standard consumer RAM. • The Sudden Glut: A data center pause means suppliers like Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron would quickly pivot their massive wafer capacities back toward standard DRAM (DDR5/LPDDR5). Standard memory supply would shift from a severe deficit to an overnight catastrophic oversupply, triggering a massive collapse in global memory contract prices. 3. Implications for Apple and Its Products Apple stands as one of the ultimate beneficiaries of a hyperscaler infrastructure cooldown, completely reversing its current cost pressures. ——> | Hyperscaler Capex Cuts (Mid-2027) | ——> | Fabs Pivot from HBM to LPDDR5/NAND ——> | Memory Prices Fall | ((presumably w/in 1-2 quarters)) ——>| Higher Profit Margins on Hardware | ((assuming hardware prices remain higher or are reduced less than the costs are reduced)) • A Squeeze-Relief on Component Costs For years, Apple has fought a losing battle against “capacity cannibalization,” as memory suppliers prioritized high-margin AI chips over consumer hardware. A hyperscaler crash frees up this capacity. Apple would use its unmatched cash reserves to lock in bottom-barrel pricing contracts for smartphone and PC RAM, drastically reducing the bill-of-materials (BOM) cost for iPhones, iPads, and MacBooks. • Aggressive Baseline Spec Increases Due to the memory crunch, Apple has had to be highly conservative with base-model memory allocations to protect profit margins. A market crash would allow Apple to aggressively boost the standard specifications of its products without raising consumer prices: • Macs: Base-model MacBooks could jump comfortably from 8GB or 16GB up to 24GB or 32GB of unified memory as standard configurations. • iPhones: Future iPhones could easily feature 12GB to 16GB of RAM out of the box, removing the physical hardware constraints that limit localized device AI processing. • On-Device AI Dominance (Apple Intelligence) While cloud providers struggle with underutilized server farms, Apple’s strategy heavily favors on-device, localized AI processing via the Apple Neural Engine. Cheap, abundant DRAM allows Apple to put massive amounts of ultra-fast unified memory directly onto its custom SoC chips. This enables consumer devices to run highly complex, large language models (LLMs) entirely offline. Apple would effectively capture the real-world value of the AI boom locally on user hardware, just as cloud-based AI infrastructure takes a massive financial hit.” If you want to track this cycle closely, I can break down the current contract pricing trends for LPDDR5 RAM or look at the historical impact of previous memory gluts on Apple’s gross profit margins. Let me know what you’d like to explore next!'
  • Bart Yee on Apple says Micron's profit margins are too high - 'Here’s where Apple is playing the long game: “why hasn’t Apple decided to start making dram and NAND flash memory for itself?” “Apple chooses not to manufacture DRAM and NAND flash memory because memory production is a low-margin commodity business that relies heavily on owning massive factories (fabs), whereas Apple operates as a fabless company focused on high-margin proprietary architecture. Even though a severe AI-driven memory shortage in 2026 has forced Apple to raise hardware prices, entering memory manufacturing makes no financial or strategic sense for them due to several major bottlenecks. 1. Apple Does Not Own Fabs Apple is entirely fabless. It designs its world-class logic processors (like the M-series and A-series chips) but outsources the actual manufacturing to foundry partners like TSMC. Fabs that produce logic processors cannot be used to make memory; building a single cutting-edge RAM or NAND manufacturing plant costs upwards of $10 billion and takes 3 to 5 years to build. Apple has historically avoided the massive capital expenditures and liabilities that come with owning physical heavy-industrial chip factories. 2. Memory is a Commodity, Not a Custom Architecture The true value of Apple Silicon lies in its custom logic design—the neural engines, GPU cores, and CPU layout that make a Mac or iPhone fast and power-efficient. • Standardized: Memory is highly standardized by international bodies like JEDEC. • Identical Performance: A gigabyte of standard LPDDR5 RAM made by Samsung performs identically to one made by Micron or SK Hynix. • Low Differentiation: Because there is little room for proprietary architectural innovation in basic data storage cells, Apple cannot create a “better” memory cell that would justify the cost of building its own supply. 3. Missing Economies of Scale To make memory chip manufacturing profitable, a company must produce them at an astronomical global scale and sell them to thousands of different clients across the entire tech ecosystem (servers, PCs, cars, and budget smartphones). Even though Apple is a tech giant, its internal product demand is too small to achieve the necessary scale to push manufacturing costs down to a profitable level. If Apple made its own memory, it would have to start selling memory chips to its direct rivals like Samsung or Dell just to break even on the factories. 4. Market Volatility The memory market is notoriously cyclical, swinging wildly between massive, unprofitable oversupply gluts and aggressive, expensive shortages. Apple prefers to protect its premium profit margins by letting suppliers absorb those brutal market swings. Instead of building factories, Apple leverages its massive cash reserves to secure long-term supply contracts and prepayments, allowing it to command the lowest possible prices from existing vendors.” If you want to look closer at this industry, I can break down the bill of materials (BOM) cost of an iPhone, or explain how Apple uses its custom in-house flash controllers to get custom performance out of third-party NAND chips. Let me know what you prefer! “if the hyperscaler infrastructure bubble begins to falter, when would that happen, what would happen to memory demand in the near term after, and what are the implications for dram supply and demand as it pertains to Apple and its products?”'
  • Bart Yee on Apple says Micron's profit margins are too high - '“In Fiscal Year 2025 (1 year ago), Micron’s GAAP gross margin was 39.8%, while its GAAP net profit margin reached 22.8%. In Fiscal Year 2024 (2 years ago), Micron reported a lower GAAP gross margin of 22.4% and a GAAP net profit margin of 3.1% as the memory market began recovering from a cyclical downturn. Today, As of their latest reported Q3 Fiscal 2026 results (ended May 28, 2026), Micron’s GAAP gross margin skyrocketed to a record-breaking 84.6%, while its GAAP net profit margin surged to 68.1%. This massive profitability spike makes Micron the tech sector’s new “margin king,” surpassing top-tier tech peers like Nvidia and Meta due to unprecedented AI infrastructure demand and tight memory supplies.” “Why has DRAM memory supply become so tight? Wasn’t there steady demand and adequate supply a year ago?” The 2025–present global memory supply shortage is driven by a massive structural shift toward AI high-bandwidth memory (HBM) production, which has severely cannibalized the supply of conventional consumer and enterprise DRAM. While supply and demand seemed balanced a year ago, it was a fragile stability following a brutal cyclical downturn. Today, spot prices for standard DDR5 memory have quadrupled since late 2025. Why the Memory Market Swung from Balanced to Severely Tight Capacity Cannibalization by HBM: • High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM) is highly inefficient to manufacture compared to standard DRAM. It requires a 3-to-1 wafer conversion ratio, meaning producing 1GB of HBM consumes the same physical factory capacity as 3GB of standard DDR5. The “Big Three” memory makers—Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron—have aggressively diverted their shared cleanroom and wafer capacity away from consumer RAM to fulfill highly profitable AI orders. Massive Hyperscale Megadeals: • Massive infrastructure projects have locked down global production. For example, OpenAI signed massive supply deals with Samsung and SK Hynix for its Stargate project, sweeping up an estimated 35% to 40% of the world’s raw DRAM wafer output. • The Windows 10 EOL Refresh: An artificial demand shock hit the enterprise sector when Microsoft officially ended support for Windows 10 in October 2025. This forced hundreds of millions of corporate PCs and laptops to undergo a mandatory hardware refresh all at once, dramatically escalating the need for standard DDR5 and LPDDR5X chips. Long Lead Times for New Fabs: Expanding semiconductor fabrication plants takes years and billions of dollars. While Micron broke ground on a new $9.3 billion facility in July 2026, mass production from new lines is not expected to go online until mid-to-late 2028. How the Market Looked 1 Year Ago vs. Today Feature Market 1 Year Ago (Mid-2025) Market Now (Mid-2026) Supply Status 2025 Adequate and balanced; recovering from glut. 2026 Severe global shortage across all formats. Primary Focus 2025 Clearing older DDR4 inventory; gradual DDR5 transition. 2026 Maximizing HBM4 and enterprise DDR5 server lines. Average Price 2025 Stable, near historical lows (e.g., $85–$95 for 32GB DDR5). 2026 Quadrupled (surging past $400 for identical kits). Lead Times 2025 Standard 4 to 8 weeks for bulk procurement. 2026 Extended out to 25+ weeks with massive order backlogs. Active Market Headwinds • Because the three major memory giants control over 93% of global DRAM supply, they have faced heightened scrutiny over their capacity allocations. A prominent class-action antitrust lawsuit filed by Beth Dunn in July 2026 even alleges that the suppliers’ simultaneous restriction of conventional DRAM production goes beyond mere AI demand and constitutes a coordinated strategy to maintain record-high margins. Regardless of the underlying legal battles, market researchers at Kearney predict that this structural supply deficit will ripple through the tech ecosystem until at least 2030.”'
  • David Emery on This week's Apple trading strategies (7/27-7/31/26) - 'Ugh. The G-word again…'
  • Kemble Widmer on Apple says Micron's profit margins are too high - 'Exactly- the premise of the article is absurd, as Apple is trying to maintain margins, not significantly raise them to exploit a temporary inefficiency in the market at the expense of consumers.'
  • Robert Paul Leitao on This week's Apple trading strategies (7/27-7/31/26) - 'In my view, what’s interesting is the Russell 2000 small cap index is outperforming the large cap indexes. Additionally, of the Terrific Ten equities six of the ten names have underperformed all four major indexes YTD. Investors are broadening their market engagement and looking for opportunities beyond the best-known names. 

FAANG, FAANG and now the so-called Magnificent 7 (or any other contrived groupings of names) have short shelf lives as a means to gauge market performance or to track market leadership for any length of time.'
  • Robert Paul Leitao on This week's Apple trading strategies (7/27-7/31/26) - 'David: Yes. YTD is from January 1st. Due to the market debut of SpaceX on June 12th, this qualifier was included at the bottom of the post: * The year-to-date decline in SpaceX represents the loss in share price since the opening price of $150 on June 12th, the first day of trading. SpaceX is included in the comparisons because of its market cap.'
  • David Drinkwater on This week's Apple trading strategies (7/27-7/31/26) - 'Hi Robert. Is this “year to date” performance January 1 to today (which is how *I* interpret YTD) or is it actually one full year’s performance? The reason I ask is that SpaceX $150 on June 12th completely doesn’t fit the narrative. (I’m probably just being obtuse.) Thanks. David'
  • David Emery on Apple says Micron's profit margins are too high - 'p.s. If we’re doing windfall profits taxes for oil companies, we should also do them for memory companies.'
  • Gregg Thurman on Apple says Micron's profit margins are too high - 'There are only 10 reasons to be in business. The first is to make a profit. The other nine don’t count. If Tim believes Micron is gouging, then I suggest he buy a memory designer/fab (don’t strain TSMC anymore than you have to) and make a “reasonable” profit. If I recall correctly, Samsung devices tried to prevail through corporate to get favorable pricing for the Samsung memory it consumes. Corporate said “NO”.'
  • Fred Stein on Apple says Micron's profit margins are too high - 'Calling BS: Apple’s hardware GM is 36% to 39%, slightly above hardware industry average of 35%. But, a lot of hardware are clones, Android, Windows, or Lintel, where the vendor does not invest in the chip nor the OS. Nvidia’s GM is 75%, Cisco’s 64%, Micron’s 80%… Naive people decry Apple’s profitability. The biggest reason for Apple’s high net profit is their efficiency, especially low OpEx and CapEx, also excellent ROIC at 45%. Finance 101.'
  • Robert Paul Leitao on This week's Apple trading strategies (7/27-7/31/26) - 'These are the year-to-date (YTD) share price performances of the Terrific Ten equities ranked by percentage gains in share prices over this time and the percentage gains in the major stock indexes over the same period. Year-to-date the Russell 2000 small cap index has outperformed the NASDAQ Composite, the DJIA and the S&P 500. Among the Terrific Ten equities Apple ranks second in performance with a 22.50% gain YTD. This follows Friday’s 3.53% rise in the share price. Meta, Tesla and Microsoft remain in the red on share price performance YTD and SpaceX has fallen well below its IPO day price. Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM) up 34.66% Apple (AAPL) – up 22.50% Russell 2000 – up 17.17% NVIDIA (NVDA) up 10.91% Broadcom (AVGO) up 10.35% S&P 500 – up 8.28% DJIA – up 8.08% NASDAQ Composite – up 7.46% Alphabet (GOOG) up 1.69% Amazon (AMZN) up 0.56% Meta Platforms (META) down (9.83%) Microsoft (MSFT) down (21.07%) SpaceX (SPCX)* down (23.29%) Tesla (TSLA) down (30.39%) * The year-to-date decline in SpaceX represents the loss in share price since the opening price of $150 on June 12th, the first day of trading.'
  • Robert Paul Leitao on This week's Apple trading strategies (7/27-7/31/26) - 'Entering this week’s trading, below is the market cap scoreboard of the Terrific Ten. These are the ten most valuable enterprises traded on US exchanges. As of Friday’s market close, Apple is within striking distance of retaking the market cap crown. Meanwhile, SpaceX’s share price and market cap have fallen back to earth. NVIDIA (NVDA) $5.01 trillion Apple (AAPL) $4.89 trillion Alphabet (GOOG) $3.91 trillion Microsoft (MSFT) $2.84 trillion Amazon (AMZN) $2.50 trillion Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM) $1.98 trillion Broadcom (AVGO) $1.71 trillion SpaceX (SPCX) $1.52 trillion Meta Platforms (META) $1.51 trillion Tesla (TSLA) $1.24 trillion'
  • David Emery on Apple says Micron's profit margins are too high - 'That makes Apple’s accusations of price gouging harder to separate from its own efforts to protect product margins. My take: Dupre’s angle is a lot more interesting than the Journal’s… Hmmmm…. Is there a difference between “protecting profit margins” and “price gouging?” I think one could make a case there IS a difference. Let’s say Apple maintains a (number picked from the air) 20% margin, by raising prices based on the amount of increase from suppliers. But Micron, who previously was making, (to pick a number) 20% on each memory chip, seems to be making -80%- on each chip. Are these equivalent sins?'
  • Rodney Avilla on Apple says Micron's profit margins are too high - '“ Tim Cook may have a point, but it’s lost in the irony.” It’s only lost in the irony if you look at it superficially. AND, only look at the pieces of the puzzle that fits your view point. What are the pieces he’s leaving out? Apple’s profit margins are NO WAY near 80%. Also Apple didn’t raise prices to raise profit margins; they, unlike Micron, raised prices because of increased costs. Another old wise proverb- a fool believes every word, but a wise looks well into the matter.'
  • Neal Guttenberg on Laura Martin: Apple's existential risk - 'Bart, Do these estimates include the possibility of a sales slowdown in the EU because of restrictions on AI software availability for the iPhone and how will that affect sales in the EU?'
  • David Emery on Laura Martin: Apple's existential risk - 'This piece might well argue that the biggest AI bubble is not in the stock market, but in the minds of business executives: https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/ai-mania-is-eviscerating-global-decision-making/ The net result of this is that almost every large organisation that I am aware of is no longer able to focus on anything important, unless they are one of the (very) few organisations where AI happens to address their highest priorities. They cannot buy sensible software, hire competent talent, communicate honestly with executives about the state of projects, or undertake any sort of sensible initiative.'
  • Gregg Thurman on This week's Apple trading strategies (7/27-7/31/26) - 'With Earnings just 5 days off and considering the volatility of the last 5 sessions, I wouldn’t consider doing anything short term. Besides, I’m holding AUG $310/$315 Call Spreadsww cards for the giving me lots of time to respond to just about any market response to Apple’s Guidance for its historically 2nd best quarter (the best being the following DEC quarter) of the year, coming off the historically worst quarter of the year.'
  • Greg Lippert on This week's Apple trading strategies (7/27-7/31/26) - 'I don’t wanna kill him just never hear from him.'
  • Bart Yee on Laura Martin: Apple's existential risk - 'The Takeaway -> The retirement cycle narrows the gap between Android & Apple significantly. While Android looked dominant early on by turning on cloud-AI for older models, those older devices are now hitting a hardware wall. Because Apple’s AI user base is built entirely on newer, high-spec hardware, it experiences virtually no user attrition. By the end of the iPhone 18 Ultra sales year in late 2027, Apple will close the active AI user gap from 350M users down to just 210M.“ ((That gap doesn’t look like an existential risk at all, but it does assume Apple users & sales continue it historical trends and there are not mass defections to other makers or Android. One thing to also remember is 45% of Android AI users will be midrange model owners who one could argue don’t value AI very much if at all, but rather the price & other value metrics. More in that later.))'
  • Steven Philips on This week's Apple trading strategies (7/27-7/31/26) - 'I obviously like the message even though at times I’d like to kill the messenger! 🙂'
  • Jonny T on Laura Martin: Apple's existential risk - 'Good God, she’s even more stupid than I realised. Perhaps on the QT she is being “incentivised”.'
  • Jonny T on Laura Martin: Apple's existential risk - 'Very good!'
  • David Drinkwater on Laura Martin: Apple's existential risk - 'So at ~ Minute 2, Martin states that Apple cannot be successful without its own AI model, and that she is confident that Apple will fail in this regard. (I think she is wrong about that, because I think Apple is far better rounded than that and is surely developing AI frameworks.) But her assertion at s:ss 2:00 is in conflict with her assertion right at the beginning that Apple cannot succeed without a hardware replacement cycle. So which is it? Is Apple a hardware company or an AI company? Surely Apple is the more than jsut the sum of both. Given the size of its installed base, Apple does not need every single unit of hardware in the field to turn over each year to generate a very strong sales volume. I have plenty of old hardware that does what I ask it to quite well. (I may need to set slightly higher standards and ask slightly harder questions in the near future, but for today, everything meets my needs. “AI” is a large piece of what will push those harder questions forward.) She doesn’t scream gloom and doom, but she is certainly far more pessimistic than I am – and I jsut think inconsistent in her messaging.'