[Obi Wan's Ghost]

After reading some of you guys I opened an account with Scotttrade.

Apple is shooting up now after staying in the same place for months. Shall I buy Apple? Everyone says it's going to hit $50 soon.

[budster101]

I wish I had money to buy Apple Stock...

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by Obi Wan's Ghost

Apple is shooting up now after staying in the same place for months. Shall I buy Apple? Everyone says it's going to hit $50 soon.

Only if you can spare the money and won't bitch and complain if you lose it. It's still a bet, nothing more...

-t

[Big Mac]

Definitely invest in the market only as much as you're prepared to lose. AAPL is riding high now, but something tells me it's going to be wise to short it soon enough.

[Glenn The Podder]

Apple stocks are just going up, invest before the intel switch.

[budster101]

Dude. Not only can't you read the rules, but your business sense sucks too.

[jcadam]

buy low sell high

[Obi Wan's Ghost]

Originally Posted by jcadam

buy low sell high

WTF is that? What's low? Wait 20 years for an economy crash?

[Obi Wan's Ghost]

Originally Posted by Big Mac

Definitely invest in the market only as much as you're prepared to lose. AAPL is riding high now, but something tells me it's going to be wise to short it soon enough.

I can't see how the switch is going to make a difference to sales etc. If you ask the majority of street people like new buyers, iPod customers, switchers what they think of the transition they won't know what you're talking about. Most people who buy peecees don't even know what's inside the box. As long as PPC support is going to be around nobody is going to notice WTF is inside. They just want a machine that works better than a Windows POS, looks cool and is friends with their iPod. Apple CFO said he's excited about new products coming out. It sounds like they are going for the shebang with the phone, new hardware designs, stuff that sells in case some customers are waiting for Macintel machines.

[Gamoe]

Originally Posted by Obi Wan's Ghost

After reading some of you guys I opened an account with Scotttrade.

Apple is shooting up now after staying in the same place for months. Shall I buy Apple? Everyone says it's going to hit $50 soon.

Can you shed some light on the stock buying process? I've been wanting to buy AAPL stock for a while now. How much $$$ do you need as an initial investment? Can you just buy some stock, without any consulting services, etc.? Anyway, tell us your experience.

[SVass]

Originally Posted by Gabriel Morales

Can you shed some light on the stock buying process? I've been wanting to buy AAPL stock for a while now. How much $$$ do you need as an initial investment? Can you just buy some stock, without any consulting services, etc.? Anyway, tell us your experience.

Any brokerage house will sell you stock if you have the money! They are no different than Walmart. Discount brokerages charge less. First, you establish an account with money and then ask them to buy you whatever usually in round lots of 100 shares. They will hold the stock for you in an account just like a bank. You can check your account, buy and sell, etc via the internet as long as your account has money in it. Maybe I should sell some of my Apple stock now. sam

[alligator]

No, you should have bought apple two years ago when the G5 was introduced. It's too late now.

[driven]

I bought in at $36.50. Quite happy. :-)

Bought VaxGen at $4.00 !!!!! ($12.20 today!)

[RonnieoftheRose]

Originally Posted by alligator

No, you should have bought apple two years ago when the G5 was introduced. It's too late now.

Don't listen to him. There's still plenty of growth in Apple with several top brokers predicting $55-60 per share. The stock remained in the upper 30s for a while because nobody knew just how well the iPod is still doing.

[RonnieoftheRose]

Originally Posted by driven

I bought in at $36.50. Quite happy. :-)

Bought VaxGen at $4.00 !!!!! ($12.20 today!)

VaxGen was in 2003. You should have sold at $18 a few months after you bought.

[RonnieoftheRose]

Originally Posted by Gabriel Morales

Can you shed some light on the stock buying process? I've been wanting to buy AAPL stock for a while now. How much $$$ do you need as an initial investment? Can you just buy some stock, without any consulting services, etc.? Anyway, tell us your experience.

Don't get involved unless you know everything about it beforehand.

[driven]

Originally Posted by RonnieoftheRose

VaxGen was in 2003. You should have sold at $18 a few months after you bought.

Why? I'm still up. I've trippled my money. Why complain?

[DeathMan]

Originally Posted by Obi Wan's Ghost

I can't see how the switch is going to make a difference to sales etc. If you ask the majority of street people like new buyers, iPod customers, switchers what they think of the transition they won't know what you're talking about. Most people who buy peecees don't even know what's inside the box. As long as PPC support is going to be around nobody is going to notice WTF is inside. They just want a machine that works better than a Windows POS, looks cool and is friends with their iPod. Apple CFO said he's excited about new products coming out. It sounds like they are going for the shebang with the phone, new hardware designs, stuff that sells in case some customers are waiting for Macintel machines.

I don't believe you're SWG. You write more like Link.

Its WAY to late to jump on the AAPL bandwagon now. You'd be better off finding a lesser known company that you feel is well run, and appears to be ready for real growth.

[RonnieoftheRose]

Originally Posted by driven

Why? I'm still up. I've trippled my money. Why complain?

True, but you could have pulled out. It hit around $18 twice since so you had the chance to cash out and look for other growth companies. I've seen companies in the last few months that have risen five to eightfold. Sadly I didn't put anything down and just watched.

[RonnieoftheRose]

Originally Posted by DeathMan

Its WAY to late to jump on the AAPL bandwagon now. You'd be better off finding a lesser known company that you feel is well run, and appears to be ready for real growth.

An extra $10-20 rise on Apple is good growth. Many people didn't believe Apple could rise from $40 to $90 before the stock split but their performance surprised everyone just as it still is.

Lesser known companies are a big stress on someone with little experience.

[driven]

Originally Posted by RonnieoftheRose

True, but you could have pulled out. It hit around $18 twice since so you had the chance to cash out and look for other growth companies. I've seen companies in the last few months that have risen five to eightfold. Sadly I didn't put anything down and just watched.

I tend to invest long term .... I think it's a good long term investment. I typically don't cash anything out unless the long term indicators are bad. (Such as Ford and GM). Typically I invest in mutual funds (let someone ELSE do the research!), only rarely do I buy individual stocks. Right now it's Apple and Vaxgen.

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by SVass

Any brokerage house will sell you stock if you have the money! They are no different than Walmart. Discount brokerages charge less. First, you establish an account with money and then ask them to buy you whatever usually in round lots of 100 shares. They will hold the stock for you in an account just like a bank. You can check your account, buy and sell, etc via the internet as long as your account has money in it. Maybe I should sell some of my Apple stock now. sam

Round lots are preferred, but you certainly don't have to buy round lots. You can even buy fractions of shares if you wish (which, of course, usually makes little sense).

Apple's valuation is pretty high, but it's not necessarily the case that there's no upside potential left. During the run-up to $90 I continued to assume there would be a retreat. But the Street was enamored of the stock, even during a bearish period. Now if the iPod continues to do well, it can continue to propel Apple along. But there is significant downside risk. At this pont, I predict the market will be very sensitive to any negative news. As all can plainly see, I'm not on the Intel bandwagon; I believe it represents a substantial risk to Apple. Investors do not like falling revenue, and they do not like uncertainty - two likely consequences of Apple's switch.

[RonnieoftheRose]

Originally Posted by Big Mac

Round lots are preferred, but you certainly don't have to buy round lots. You can even buy fractions of shares if you wish (which, of course, usually makes little sense).

Apple's valuation is pretty high, but it's not necessarily the case that there's no upside potential left. During the run-up to $90 I continued to assume there would be a retreat. But the Street was enamored of the stock, even during a bearish period. Now if the iPod continues to do well, it can continue to propel Apple along. But there is significant downside risk. At this pont, I predict the market will be very sensitive to any negative news. As all can plainly see, I'm not on the Intel bandwagon; I believe it represents a substantial risk to Apple. Investors do not like falling revenue, and they do not like uncertainty - two likely consequences of Apple's switch.

As Obi Wan said it doesn't really matter to most consumers, like 75%, what's inside a Mac as long as it is fast enough to do what people want to do with a Mac. How many people know what a RISC or x86 is? They don't have a ****ing clue or give a ****. Apple is going for Intel because of the performance per watt, in other words so they can get laptops out that can handle Hi-Definition Video without overheating and to get rid of those big heatsinks in the G5.

They are pretty aware that people buy Macs for the design and the OS and that's the way it will always be. I see no consequences of the switch because most buyers overlook the CPU in favor of asking questions like does it run the programs that I need and how well does it work with my digital devices? The iTunes phone is also something that has not been factored into the share price yet.

Will iPod sales slow down? Apple is already at work building a new iPod with a menu system that features real time full color Quartz like effects according to patents and licenses. The competition already has a hard enough time chasing the current iPod whose features are mostly almost four years old now. The next generation, or reinvention, should be quite something. Apple isn't going to take a step backwards. Expect it to have a visualizer like iTunes so that it can be connected to a television and Airport Express/sound system among a few new features.

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by RonnieoftheRose

They are pretty aware that people buy Macs for the design and the OS and that's the way it will always be. I see no consequences of the switch because most buyers overlook the CPU in favor of asking questions like does it run the programs that I need and how well does it work with my digital devices? The iTunes phone is also something that has not been factored into the share price yet.

I realize the majority of consumers won't care about the transition. At the same time, I contend that the cost of this PC transition will be considerably higher than many of you would like to think. Apple's future is at stake, so I truly hope I'm wrong and will readily admit I was wrong if the transition goes smoothly. I'm just not prepared to underestimate the very real costs and potential risks.

Will iPod sales slow down? Apple is already at work building a new iPod with a menu system that features real time full color Quartz like effects according to patents and licenses. The competition already has a hard enough time chasing the current iPod whose features are mostly almost four years old now. The next generation, or reinvention, should be quite something. Apple isn't going to take a step backwards. Expect it to have a visualizer like iTunes so that it can be connected to a television and Airport Express/sound system among a few new features.

I haven't been following the news on that front. I suppose I'll have to hunt around for the details. I hope Apple does have impressive designs for future iPod generations. I also hope there are other Digital Lifestyle devices being prepared for the market. For if the iPod has been able to catapult Apple into the stratosphere, consider what a second popular DLD would do for the company.

[ASIMO]

Invest in what you know and believe in. For me, it is silicone berast implants.

[lngtones]

Originally Posted by Big Mac

Now if the iPod continues to do well, it can continue to propel Apple along. But there is significant downside risk. At this pont, I predict the market will be very sensitive to any negative news. As all can plainly see, I'm not on the Intel bandwagon; I believe it represents a substantial risk to Apple. Investors do not like falling revenue, and they do not like uncertainty - two likely consequences of Apple's switch.

And what facts do you have that the transition won't lead to increased revenue?

I can just as easily say:

"But there is significant upside potential. At this pont, I predict the market will be very sensitive to any new product announcements. As all can plainly see, I'm on the Intel bandwagon; I believe it represents substantial foresight by Apple. Investors like increasing revenue, and they have no reason for uncertainty - two real factors of Apple's switch."

It doesn't make it any more true. I still haven't heard anyone give a good business case for why the Intel switch is poor.

All I've heard is people whining about religion and things that really don't matter as much as your average slashdot reading, really more clueless than they realize, person makes them out to be.

For example, a guy at my office is convinced that there will be "no software" for the Intel Macs when they come out (By this, he means even less than the "no software" that already works for PPC Macs). This guy has a degree in computer science, yet he is in plain denial that Rosetta exists and that most software takes only a recompile to convert to the x86 ISA. This isn't even a new idea. People have been able to recompile, say standard C code, for YEARS for different architectures. Most of the issues with porting to a different ISA/OS is library support and Apple has already solved that part of the equation.

Another person keeps telling me that Apple is going to become a software only company because it doesn't make any money on hardware. I'm serious! They just released their financials and just as before, over 50% of there revenue is from selling Mac hardware. If you do that math, that's over 1.5 BILLION DOLLARS selling hardware in a single quarter. Why in the name of anything would they stop doing that?

The same guy that said there will be no software also told me that it will only take "2 lines of code" to make OS X run on any PC. Ignoring the obvious driver issues you would have, I want to ask you. There is just no proof of this either way, and it stands to reason that Apple will put significant resources into making it very difficult to put OS X on other PCs. Just look to the last paragraph to see why.

I'm not seeing the downside potential? A handful of geeks stomping their feet because they don't like intel or x86? That's the only negative thing I've heard that can't be argued with because it's purely subjective. I can say I don't like broccoli, doesn't mean it's no good or that other people don't like it.

Buy Apple stock, they're only due to increase revenue hand over fist and they're on a roll with great products.

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by lngtones

And what facts do you have that the transition won't lead to increased revenue?

I can just as easily say:

"But there is significant upside potential. At this pont, I predict the market will be very sensitive to any new product announcements. As all can plainly see, I'm on the Intel bandwagon; I believe it represents substantial foresight by Apple. Investors like increasing revenue, and they have no reason for uncertainty - two real factors of Apple's switch."

There is significant upside potential, but to ignore the downside risk is to engage in willful ignorance. Apple's performing a computing brain transplant - risky surgery indeed. You don't think there's any reason for uncertainty concerning the future of Apple's computing platform? I think the likelihood of declining Mac sales during this long transition is far greater than the likelihood that Mac sales will remain stable or increase, given that the Mac will likely stagnate over the next year and there won't be any Apple PCs until sometime in 2006 to compensate for the loss.

It doesn't make it any more true. I still haven't heard anyone give a good business case for why the Intel switch is poor.

It's too early to tell, but there are strong reasons to conclude that we'll be in for a much bumpier ride than you and many others are expecting.

For example, a guy at my office is convinced that there will be "no software" for the Intel Macs when they come out (By this, he means even less than the "no software" that already works for PPC Macs). This guy has a degree in computer science, yet he is in plain denial that Rosetta exists and that most software takes only a recompile to convert to the x86 ISA.

If this Mac savvy programmer doesn't understand what Apple's up to here - even though you've given him Apple's marketing line - then something's gone awry somewhere. Do you believe he's only a statistical aberration? Or would you concede that he and people like him may make up a small but sizable portion of Apple's sales base that will be lost in this transition?

Another person keeps telling me that Apple is going to become a software only company because it doesn't make any money on hardware. I'm serious! They just released their financials and just as before, over 50% of there revenue is from selling Mac hardware. If you do that math, that's over 1.5 BILLION DOLLARS selling hardware in a single quarter. Why in the name of anything would they stop doing that?

What could stop it? A prolonged transition to PC hardware that will cause some to delay/desist their Mac purchases. People are primarily concerned about the possibility of premature obsolescence. They're also concerned about the specter of having to replace a lot of software so that they can run their most important applications at native speeds. And even when the transition is progressing along, there definitely will be incompatibles, bugs and quirks that will turn additional people off. All these factors (and a couple others I have neglected) may only end up alienating an insignificant number of people, but, on the other hand, it may well alienate a significant percentage of Apple's base.

I'm not seeing the downside potential? A handful of geeks stomping their feet because they don't like intel or x86? That's the only negative thing I've heard that can't be argued with because it's purely subjective.

Perhaps you don't want to see the downside, but you're seeing anecdotal evidence of the fallout right now.

Buy Apple stock, they're only due to increase revenue hand over fist and they're on a roll with great products.

A wildly optimistic assertion. How long have you been following AAPL and the market in general? There are a great many variables involved; investors are a fickle, often irrational group.

[RonnieoftheRose]

The transition is no different to the new generation of consoles that maintain backward compatibility with older games. The PS2 did it and has sold millions. Nobody asks what CPU is in them unless they are geeks, who are very few. As long as the products that come out are the best Apple will continue to sell. The emphasis is on what's running on the hardware, how well the software runs, what the hardware looks like, and the digital hub. Nobody does that as well as Apple.

Apple Stores make a difference too. Once a passer by goes in them and uses a Mac for a few moments, when they go home to Windows they feel the difference and it hurts. It's not the processor that's causing the pain or pleasure either way. It is the OS. The Apple Stores are going to keep bringing them in, especially in cities like London, NY, etc

There's no need to worry at all. Apple has made the transition extremely easy. The only people worried are those who have PPC Macs who want to know if their software will keep running well on future machines. They make up a minority because the majority always buy software upgrades after a while. And Apple made this transition so easy with X-Code and Rosetta. It's unbelievable that anyone can have serious concerns and keep raising them. Do we have to keep banging our heads against a wall for nothing?

[RonnieoftheRose]

Originally Posted by Big Mac

How long have you been following AAPL and the market in general? There are a great many variables involved; investors are a fickle, often irrational group.

Apple's shareholders are a pretty solid bunch. Look at Apple's graph for the last few years and you'll see very little high impact profit taking. The vast majority are in it for the long run because they know the points outlined in posts above - it's the OS and the digital hub that's bringing in the money!

[Gamoe]

Originally Posted by RonnieoftheRose

The transition is no different to the new generation of consoles that maintain backward compatibility with older games. The PS2 did it and has sold millions. Nobody asks what CPU is in them unless they are geeks, who are very few. As long as the products that come out are the best Apple will continue to sell. The emphasis is on what's running on the hardware, how well the software runs, what the hardware looks like, and the digital hub. Nobody does that as well as Apple.

You're comparing the Mac to a gaming console? There are far more complexities involved here. Every software title for a console is licensed and approved by the console maker. Supporting every piece of software written for a computer platform is a much more complex matter. Apart from this there are the differences in cost, hardware (a console has "frozen in" hardware, unlike a computer), and so on. These are quite different matters.

There's no need to worry at all. Apple has made the transition extremely easy. The only people worried are those who have PPC Macs who want to know if their software will keep running well on future machines. They make up a minority because the majority always buy software upgrades after a while. And Apple made this transition so easy with X-Code and Rosetta. It's unbelievable that anyone can have serious concerns and keep raising them. Do we have to keep banging our heads against a wall for nothing?

Just as you and others are claiming that we should not pre-judge Apple in thinking that this will be a bumpy or bad transition, I ask you to look at the other side of the coin and realize that we do not know how easy or transparent this transition will be. Basing conclusions on a prepared keynote presentation or preliminary development work is somewhat foolhardy. I think some caution is not unreasonable at this time.

As far as the PPC people being in the minority-- I don't think Apple can really afford to lose a great number of that loyal "minority". PPC compatibility and emulation speed will be quite important in these upcoming times for may users. Hopefully Apple is as up to task as they claim.

And regardless of any logic, let us remember that stock prices go up and down based on mere perception, which is another battlefront altogether. This will depend on how good Apple's marketing is, if the investors buy it, and other signs coming from developers and the Mac community.

[Obi Wan's Ghost]

Thank you people. I am not SWG.

[Obi Wan's Ghost]

Originally Posted by Gabriel Morales

Supporting every piece of software written for a computer platform is a much more complex matter.

Hehe. Most end users run pirate software or never ask support.