The Stock Market and Investing

robr2

I think you are reading way too much into this.

If it truly is vindictive, why not just go after the entire Apple company rather than just one part of the business?

Kirstie_H

even if it is vindictive, that doesn't make it invalid.

robr2

Good point.

houdini1

Under our current administration, what does validity have to do with who the DOJ goes after?

I haven't seen them going after illegal aliens. That would be valid.

I haven't seen them going after the Black Panthers for voter intimidation. That would be valid.

I haven't seen them going after all those folks threatening to kill that Zimmerman guy. That would be valid.

I don't see them going after ACORN. That would be valid.

They are very selective on who they decide to ruin. It is usually either personal or political.

Kirstie_H

Those are all valid, and so may be the case involving Apple. They may be all equally valid. Now, the argument could (rather easily) be made that those you mentioned are more important, and that attending to those issues would have more impact, but that isn't related to validity.

Prosecuting a person for a minor speeding violation is as valid, legally, as prosecuting someone for murder, but obviously one is more deserving of attention from the legal system than another. (and yes, I agree that those you listed are more deserving of attention.)

houdini1

How about going after those states that are simply trying to enforce immigration laws? Is that valid?

How about fighting tooth and nail to prevent states from enacting voter ID laws? Is that valid?

robr2

Probably. Immigration falls under federal law - not state.

houdini1

Those state immigration laws were carefully crafted so as not to conflict with the Federal laws. States have always been free to enact and enforce their own laws when there is no conflict. The federal laws are there, they are just not enforced.

Kirstie_H

I can't possibly address the validity of every single case the DOJ investigates. My original point was exactly as stated - nothing more, nothing less. The fact that the impetus for investigation involved a vindictive spirit does not invalidate the claims in the case. They may be revealed to be invalid, or they may be revealed to be valid. But the vindictive nature has no bearing on validity. If you read anything more into it, I can't help you.

houdini1

I don't believe I ever said that the claim against Apple was not valid, but since you brought up the validity issue I am simply pointing out, that under the current administration, validity plays a very minor role in those cases they choose to pursue or not pursue.

kyfdx

Those state immigration laws were carefully crafted so as not to conflict with the Federal laws. States have always been free to enact and enforce their own laws when there is no conflict. The federal laws are there, they are just not enforced.

I think the Federal judiciary disagrees with you... They frequently enjoin states from implementing their own, more restrictive immigration laws...

fintail

MSFT might also be hurting over the last 12 years or so due to endless amounts of poorly received new products. I think I'll fire up my Vista computer and link it to my Zune :shades:

Everything isn't a federal conspiracy - the overpaid idiotic executive set makes mistakes, too.

houdini1

I think the Federal judiciary disagrees with you... They frequently enjoin states from implementing their own, more restrictive immigration laws...

In many of these recent lawsuits, the proposed state laws were LESS restrictive than the fed laws...at any rate, more restrictive laws were not the basis of these lawsuits.

The basis was that the states could not pass ANY law concerning immigration, and that immigration was under sole purview of the Fed gov.

houdini1

Charlie, hopefully we will find out what happened to your money before too much longer. All the feds have to do is give that O'brien woman immunity and she will tell them who made the call.

If they really want to get to the bottom of this, why wouldn't they give her immunity? IMO, if she talks, Corzine is in trouble. If they don't give her immunity, we'll know that they are protecting Corzine.

imidazol97

>Vista computer

Hate Vista. Recently tried to troubleshoot the one friends had. I had maintained it for them since they bought it. Impossible to troubleshoot the blue screens and unexplained reboots. Motherboard problem was the eventual conclusion. But Vista is awful. XP Pro is my choice with two of those and a Windows 7 64 pro. Now MSFT is going to quit supporting my XP. It's the only OS they had recently that made sense.

anthonyp

One thing that a high priced stock like IBM or Apple or Google, is that a person readily sees it if the price declines or advanced in multiple of dollars vs in my case with stocks that are priced in the teens or twenties, is that they decline just a quarter of fifty cents, and the percentage is large, but it doesn`t alarm you or catch your attention, until it is too late....I don`t know which is better?? but I do know in my case it is planned that way by Wall Street....Tony

cyclone4

I know that the Commodity Customer Coalition is very much advocating that she gets immunity. For those of you that do not know, the CCC group is representing former customers of MF Global.

Additionally, there was an important development from the Trustee yesterday. It looks like he will be going after some key individuals at MF Global Holdings to try and recover the money.

fintail

I run 7 on my normal computer, no complaints. Have XP on a netbook and on the workplace machines, it all runs fine too - any problems there are hardware based, let the tools age so the 1%er suits can continue to pile on bonuses, working well :shades:

circlew

Went to Win7 pro years ago but agree XP was great. My Bro has been working with Win 8 beta for awhile now and says it's pretty robust and some minor glitches but nothing even close to the Vista abomination.

Regards,
OW

gagrice

When you consider that almost every new computer sold has an operating system installed. And Microsoft is the major player. You add the fact that MSFT has to continue to make changes with all those H-1B engineers they have brought from India. You end up with lousy products like Windows ME and Vista. I am not thrilled with MS Office 2007 either. Much more difficult getting anything done than the old versions of Word and Excel. I think they try to make it easy to use and it is just the opposite. And of course paying for MS tech support is out of the question in my thinking. That is why I am cheering for some alternatives like Android. Spent time yesterday showing an 87 year old friend how to get email with his new Acer tablet. It was a learning experience for me as well. The more I play with tablets the more I prefer a laptop with a mouse. Are pads a fad?????

ljflx

Till now there has never been a true Diamond fund. But that may be about to change. There is a great push for a diamond fund by Harry Winston and others. This may lead to more expensive jewelry in the future as till now we don't have any speculative money in diamonds. The future prospects are for production to be stable to today while demand increases thanks to China and India. The problem for me is that there are all different qualities of diamonds including industrial diamonds for machinery, which actually dominate. I guess what we are talking here is jewelry quality diamonds but again even there we have many different qualities. The other thing is that there are only a few major producers led by DeBeers at 40%, They once had 80-90% control but sold off a lot of their mines. You could never establish a trading system with a hold like that. On the surface sounds like this could be a good investment because trading prospects look to go nothing but up based on early fundamentals. Then we see what higher prices do to demand.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/14/business/turning-diamonds-into-a-must-have-com- modity.html?ref=todayspaper

Another good story here on Ford's Lincoln strategies.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/14/business/ford-tries-to-save-the-lincoln.html?_- r=1&ref=todayspaper

circlew

Are pads a fad?????

I do not believe so. The kids are into them just like their iphone. Now, they keep their iphone in the pocket and use the pad as their social media tool as pix are super clear, large and screens are far better than when they first came out.

I'll bet sales teams will exclusively use them soon instead of laptops as presentation tools.

Regards,
OW

gagrice

You are probably right. As half the older people in our church now have them to use in place of their bibles. Most do their email etc from pads. Only one has an iPad. Most have the cheaper Acer & Asus tablets you get at Best Buy and Costco.

ljflx

First off Google's behavior on it's manless street cars data collection is strange and the company has gone much deeper then anyone knows and some things are very personal. The last thing in the world this company needs is consumers who stop trusting them. I think this could become a much bigger issue than Google realizes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/technology/google-is-fined-for-impeding-us-inq- - uiry-on-data-collection.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

The absolute mess that is Sony. They have totally missed the boat and they still have high end technicians that do everything in salvos. This company needs to be totally re-organized and it needs a hot new product soon.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/technology/google-is-fined-for-impeding-us-inq- - uiry-on-data-collection.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

And this story about the overall stock marke and earningst.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/your-money/corporate-profits-have-stalled-has-- - the-market.html?scp=1&sq=the%20market%20has%20stalled&st=cse

anthonyp

There was an interesting article a day or so ago, about how the economy of California, largely on the coast has recovered from the recession...It further went on to say that inland the recession still had a grip

On getting to the mountains to open the house up for the summer- fall- I always pay close attention to the activity, and am sorry to say things are a bit slow up here....I don`t know if we are in a lull because of the early spring, or if the recession is still going on .....There is alot of car activity, but the people are not in the stores and restaurants as I expected......It could be like California, as everything on the coast is booming, and the larger communities in NC are also very active Tony

ljflx

Tony,

There was also a story in the Times yesterday that Manhattan real estate is rolling again. There are offers and counter offers, any open house is mobbed and it's currently a sellers market there. This would carry over to nearby areas like Hoboken and Jersey City. Nevertheless the market remains nervous about it continuing.

gagrice

Housing is moving very well here. The sales in my community are strong. However the prices are right about 50% of what they hit in 2006 our peak. Building is at a standstill for single family homes. I just looked at a home built in 2005 and sold for $885k, it is a short sale entertaining offers down to $449k. The lot sold for $460k in 2003. A subdivision within a mile of me has 56 lots from 1 to 8 acres. They are selling with paved streets, underground utilities all in for $150k to $200k. They are bank owned the subdivider is in jail for fraud. We looked for a lot in 2006 before we bought this place and nothing in the area was available under $400k. No way you can build for what homes are selling for today. Most of those being sold are Foreclosures and Short sales. here is one of many:

http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/339-Galloway-Valley-Rd-Alpine-CA-91901/1690488- 9_zpid/

circlew

Looks like some good points here but also a huge buying opportunity developing at the moment.

Apple Stock Slides: 4 Long-Term Concerns for the Tech Giant

Regards,
OW

cyclone4

Thanks OW! Even though he says he is not a bear, I don't necessarily believe this guy. He may not have been a bear in the past, but I bet he dumped his AAPL shares recently.

imidazol97

His body language says there's something wrong in his talk. I suspect he has shorted apple. I have the feeling he believes it will continue to go up, eventually, but for now he can make money day-trading it down.

cyclone4

His body language says there's something wrong in his talk. I suspect he has shorted apple.

Exactly!!

houdini1

If that is true, he is doing a very good job !!!

anthonyp

In my very limited (small) account, I purchased a little to make my quarterly gamble.....Probably buy a little more tomorrow, just depending on how it trades...

I wonder if this selling has anything to do with the income tax being due?? Tony

kyfdx

I think it's a combination of the collusion lawsuit and the possibility of cell carriers giving up less of their monthly fees to Apple, once current contracts expire....

Plus, the lack of any bad news at all, over the last three months... the stock might be a little overbought... any excuse for profit taking, given the run up in price..

gagrice

Also fear of Long Term Capitol Gains tax going up. If you bought AAPL 10 years ago it is time to dump it and cash in your winnings while the LTCG is at 15%

kyfdx

Well.... you wouldn't think tax law changes would make a difference until the end of the year...

gagrice

It could be a case of feeling the stock has peaked. Add the Obama DOJ rattling their cage. Having gotten hit hard by the Clinton DOJ Microsoft debacle, I would be mighty anxious if I was sitting on a few thousand shares of AAPL. If a person bought in at $400- to $500 I would say stick it out. The company does have very solid financials. If They bought at $100 or down around $10 why be greedy? take the money and run...

ljflx

Read a story today that a lot of the selling of Google and Apple was due to mandatory rebalancing by a lot of fund managers because Texas Instruments is about to be added to the Nasdaq 100. We went through this about a year ago when the Nasdaq reduced Apple's weighting because it was getting too high. That made the stock fall sharply at that time as Index funds were forced to sell and this triggered selling of Apple across the board not only in the funds but in ETF's (in this case because they carry a lot of risk because of both stocks) and anything that is associated with weighting requirements. In the last 5 days both companies have had trading volume that is double their normal so it may well be happening again. I found it very curious that both companies have been falling at the same time especially in advance of probable blowout earnings by Apple and a very solid earnings announcement by Google. There were only two things I was thinking of on Apple before I read about Texas instruments and they were that someone knew something negative about Apple earnings next week or that this is all being caused by technicals that have nothing to do with the fundamentals of the stock. Naturally I also thought of manipulation of the share price in advance of the earnings report to allow hedge funds, who are way under-invested in Apple to get in. If it's true that this a technical sell-off due to mandatory re-balancing requirements of so many funds and instruments then what a joke CNBC was all day as it brought in so many people to discuss every possible reason why fundamentals may be changing or that the company's run is over.

One thing I never factor in is the big domono effect technical stuff like this causes. It's almost like forced and legal collusion to get a company's stock price to rise or fall. Notice how the Dow was unaffected as neither Google or Apple is a Dow company. Lesson learned - always sell a high flyer when a key index is changing the weighting of a stock or is replacing a much lower valued company. In this case Texas Instruments is 18X the market cap of the company it is replacing. I can't find the detailed story I read earlier but here's another one similar.

http://blogs.barrons.com/focusonfunds/2012/04/16/apples-down-but-theres-reason-t- - - - - - - - - - o-cheer-index-changes/?mod=yahoobarrons

anthonyp

That is probably the main reason.....Thanks Tony

cyclone4

If it's true that this a technical sell-off due to mandatory re-balancing requirements of so many funds and instruments then what a joke CNBC was all day as it brought in so many people to discuss every possible reason why fundamentals may be changing or that the company's run is over.

It was shameful today how all these "know it alls" were trying to say that it's all over for AAPL due to supposed changing fundamentals with the company. What a bunch of crock.

Your reasoning above makes a lot of sense as this sort of thing happened before. I am betting on an up day for AAPL tomorrow and my thinking is that the stock will be well above $600 again just ahead of the earnings report next Tuesday. That report should be another very positive report. I bet we see incredible numbers for the iPhone and new iPad.

ljflx

I am betting on an up day for AAPL tomorrow

Well if it's a technical selloff, which is what I believe, then it depends on where we are in the selloff. Mid stages, late stages, done? Is anyone holding back selling until it bounces and then they sell out putting pressure on the stock after a rebound. Jury's out. IMO we are at the late stages but may see more pressure today at the open or just after it and then later the stock comes roaring back. In Europe the stock sold off to $571 or so and now is back near $580. GOOG has come up $3 and change in Europe but had been up $6 and change earlier. One thing I agree with is there'll be a big rebound before earnings. And then once earnings are announced we'll hear a whole different tune on CNBC. In the end they are pure media and go with the flow that leads to the highest ratings. They used to be so good at the economic reasons behind stocks and financial instruments but now I hardly see an economist on there. And not once have i heard on CNBC that this may all be due to mandatory re-balancing of funds because or Texas Instruments. That doesn't make good copy.

cyclone4

Len,

I cannot argue about today's action based on what you stated above about the technicals. I was thinking that the rebalancing is about done. The bottom line, however, is that we both believe that there will be a huge rebound ahead of the earnings report.

ljflx

Well Charlie, unless there's a big sell off coming in the next 3 hours it looks like you were spot on with the up action today and above $600 price.

cyclone4

Len,

You are the one that deserves all the praise. Until I saw your post about the re-balancing action, I was becoming "chicken little".

It is also great that Tony bought some AAPL yesterday on the huge dip.

anthonyp

I`m just trying for the quick trade---earnings expectations---What I would like is some un justified decline so I could get an investment position....Like Len said though ` if you miss today high, it will be the low that isn`t seen again` or words to that effect.....I think when he said that the stock was a hundred points lower

I keep trying to get a 4g phone that would take the place of the land line, and there are alot of competing products out there...I`m a loyal aapl fan, but it is possible that Verizon could come along with a plan that would be tempting.....

The more you know the loftier aapl appears, so the earnings are becoming more and more critical imo Tony

ljflx

I never expected Apple to get $30 back in one day. No matter what the causes, a loss of $25 one day and a gain of $30 the next makes things look manipulative to others. The bad thing about things like the Nasdaq, S&P etc making changes is that you get a lot of mandatory adjustments from funds. Again it's almost like legalized collusion. Apple's may have been more severe because I'd bet they were over-weighted and I'll also bet there was a lot of ETF's selling yesterday.

anthonyp

This volatility usually is the frontrunner to a correction----for what ever reason---Tony

cyclone4

Tony,

This is volatility with a capital V. It appears that the main reason/excuse for the sell-off since early yesterday is that Qualcomm will not be able to meet the chip demand.

anthonyp

I would read the Verizon report......That is more factually based...Tony

anthonyp

Tough holding during a decline......I got some more today---just a little--- Tony