Silicon Investor - Apple Inc.

[Stock Puppy] Since I am an investor in Apple, I will try to lay aside my sarcastic remarks. ...

Stock Puppy — 8/26/2026 6:39:00 PM

Since I am an investor in Apple, I will try to lay aside my sarcastic remarks.

So I wonder what Apple will do to differentiate their foldable phone from others - besides the wonderful iOS?

I mean they can't just say, "Hey - we're finally doing it now!"

pcmag.com

[NAG1] Hey Frank, They announced some new Mac minis yesterday that won't be available ...

NAG1 — 8/26/2026 3:21:09 PM

Hey Frank,

They announced some new Mac minis yesterday that won't be available until later next month. What I have been reading is that they didn't want the Mac announcement to step on the new iPhone introductions. Especially since it will be the first show with Ternus in the lead. The other thing I have been reading is that we will possibly see the foldable iPhone make an appearance.

[Frank Walker] Apple event to happen September 9, called Surprise and Shine.

Frank Walker — 8/26/2026 12:50:56 PM

[Stock Puppy] Apple is getting uppity today. Euro stores foldable iPhone Congrats on all wh...

Stock Puppy — 8/18/2026 12:49:15 PM

Apple is getting uppity today.

Euro stores
foldable iPhone

Congrats on all who purchased recently.

Wheee!

[Stock Puppy] 306? Ah well, just like the good old days - beleaguered once again! For a whil...

Stock Puppy — 8/11/2026 10:21:19 AM

306?

Ah well, just like the good old days - beleaguered once again!

For a while.

Maybe short while.

But don't go short - you know what will happen!

[Stock Puppy] [graphic] Here we go again! [graphic] Don't worry, this guy will show up He ...

Stock Puppy — 7/31/2026 12:51:48 PM

Here we go again!

Don't worry, this guy will show up

He always does!

[NAG1] Was out most of the afternoon/evening so didn't get a chance to listen to the ca...

NAG1 — 7/30/2026 10:43:45 PM

Was out most of the afternoon/evening so didn't get a chance to listen to the call. Sounds like the quarterly numbers were good, maybe a little light on services. Sounded like the guidance may have been a little soft which is probably why the stock is down 7% after hours. They still grew earnings over 20% so a decent report but maybe not enough to justify the current run up.

[Stock Puppy] Never mind - that was peanuts. 340. [graphic]

Stock Puppy — 7/28/2026 7:44:09 PM

Never mind - that was peanuts.

340.

[Stock Puppy] 338 [graphic]

Stock Puppy — 7/28/2026 10:42:38 AM

338

[manning18] Isn’t it time for Apple to split? 3/2 would nice..timmy’s last hurrah

manning18 — 7/27/2026 7:19:49 AM

[Force Majeure] Dang... nicely done!! We missed out on the first two--took our first position in...

Force Majeure — 7/18/2026 8:16:08 PM

Dang... nicely done!! We missed out on the first two--took our first position in 2002--and have been buying & holding on ever since (who needs diversification, lol). Regardless, it's been an amazing journey so far, and like the energizer bunny... it's still going!

[NAG1] Heywood, If I am remembering correctly, it wasn't just that they felt that Appl...

NAG1 — 7/18/2026 10:46:37 AM

Heywood,

If I am remembering correctly, it wasn't just that they felt that Apple was overvalued. It was that they thought Apple was going to fail. But that is just from memory.

My point was just that I think/feel that Apple is somewhat overvalued here but, unless something bad happens, that it will most likely continue to grow into this valuation. I continue to hold my Apple shares, only selling some off to keep my cash position decent in retirement.

[Heywood40] I missed out on the 1987 stock split, but got in on the rest of them, for a tota...

Heywood40 — 7/17/2026 11:46:30 PM

I missed out on the 1987 stock split, but got in on the rest of them, for a total of 112:1

June 16, 1987	2-for-1
June 21, 2000	2-for-1
Feb. 28, 2005	2-for-1
June 9, 2014	7-for-1
Aug. 28, 2020	4-for-1

[Stock Puppy] Oh yeah? Well when will Apple hit $363 again, huh? Huh? [graphic]

Stock Puppy — 7/17/2026 10:55:43 PM

Oh yeah?

Well when will Apple hit $363 again, huh?

Huh?

[Heywood40] I should note, the moderator of that board, to his credit, eventually acknowledg...

Heywood40 — 7/17/2026 10:45:01 PM

I should note, the moderator of that board, to his credit, eventually acknowledged that "the thesis of the thread header has been thoroughly disproved by the market."

[Heywood40] There's been an SI board dedicated to that line of thought since 2011... silico...

Heywood40 — 7/17/2026 10:13:56 PM

There's been an SI board dedicated to that line of thought since 2011...

siliconinvestor.com

[Stock Puppy] irrationality of the valuation. Every time I hear that about Apple, Apple eve...

Stock Puppy — 7/17/2026 6:12:36 PM

irrationality of the valuation.

Every time I hear that about Apple,

Apple eventually makes up for it.

Didn't;t they say that last time Apple was around 300 -

a few splits ago?

Of course, except for crappy dividend.

[NAG1] Hey SP, Apple does seem a bit richly valued here. Even if Apple grows earnings ...

NAG1 — 7/17/2026 10:49:21 AM

Hey SP,

Apple does seem a bit richly valued here. Even if Apple grows earnings 10%, that changes the PE from 40 to 36+. It may take a while for Apple to grow into this valuation. But I guess the money that is being taken out of AI and memory stocks is, at least partially, going into Apple(at least that is what I am reading) which probably explains some of the irrationality of the valuation.

[Stock Puppy] Oh dear - should we all run for the hills? Oh wait - close at 333.26. Nevermi...

Stock Puppy — 7/16/2026 4:48:32 PM

Oh dear - should we all run for the hills?

Oh wait - close at 333.26.

Nevermind.

I was just thinking about the negative news a month or so ago that tanked things back then.
That was just another one of Apple's buying ops back then.

Lesson I learned - when thing look negative for Apple - buy!
The more hopeless, the more to buy!
(standard disclaimer about past results not predicting the future but I am willing to risk exception in Apple's case)

With all the quiet here, I'd guess everyone sold their shares long ago...

And maybe used that money to buy a stock that gives better dividends than Apple's sucky ones - 0.33%.
But Apple does make it up with stock price.
But I do have one that gives great dividends (supposedly 14%!!!) and their stock recently doubled from what I bought. Luck. Eh.

Or value sleep more than looking at Apple stock prices.

You guys are still breathing, right?

Obligatory doggie dance:

[Stock Puppy] Woo - woo! It's up there! [graphic]

Stock Puppy — 7/10/2026 4:14:08 PM

Woo - woo!

It's up there!

[Stock Puppy] I thought their AI was broke or something. Now another new high or something. ...

Stock Puppy — 7/10/2026 1:52:38 PM

I thought their AI was broke or something.

Now another new high or something.

Congrats to all who bought in recently under 300 or 280 or something!

Key to apple stock - buy when the scary stories come out.

Or something.

or you could be short and negative.

[George W Bush] Actually, they use soldered in memory to improve performance.

George W Bush — 6/20/2026 10:58:08 PM

[Doren] Apple raising prices, CEO says "we’ve been trying to shield our customers from...

Doren — 6/18/2026 5:51:19 PM

Apple raising prices, CEO says

"we’ve been trying to shield our customers from the increases"

Yeah right...

"tech company is set to increase the prices of its products in an attempt to counteract rising memory and storage chip costs."

Apple has long used soldered in memory to screw it's customers.

[Stock Puppy] [graphic] Whee! And just for the heck of it: [graphic]

Stock Puppy — 6/9/2026 4:08:33 PM

Whee!

And just for the heck of it:

[NAG1] If you have about 15 minutes, Marcus Brownlee has a review of the WWDC keynote ...

NAG1 — 6/9/2026 2:17:56 PM

If you have about 15 minutes, Marcus Brownlee has a review of the WWDC keynote

youtube.com

[Ron] True for many with all tech, now. Some of it is data centers beginning to intru...

Ron — 6/9/2026 9:20:52 AM

True for many with all tech, now.
Some of it is data centers beginning to intrude into people's communities, a tangible thing.

[Doren] Its not a hardware or software problem... its a matter of trust.

Doren — 6/9/2026 12:18:23 AM

[NAG1] Engineer, Seriously ? they are ALL about downloading info and doing it on a gia...

NAG1 — 6/8/2026 11:03:31 PM

Engineer,

Seriously ? they are ALL about downloading info and doing it on a giant bank of servers. Little or no local processing is taking place.

My understanding of things is that it stays on device unless you say it can go off device. Again, from my understanding, that is why it has taken longer to get things right.

[engineer] Seriously ? they are ALL about downloading info and doing it on a giant b...

engineer — 6/8/2026 10:48:06 PM

Seriously ? they are ALL about downloading info and doing it on a giant bank of servers. Little or no local processing is taking place.

[NAG1] Hey Doren, Nice to see you are still around. All the stuff is supposed to hap...

NAG1 — 6/8/2026 10:34:44 PM

Hey Doren,

Nice to see you are still around.

All the stuff is supposed to happen on device so they aren't downloading everything about you to try to take advantage of the information. Most people feel like it is the better way to do things to maintain privacy.

[Doren] SIRI will now keep an eye on your screens to better "help" you... more clippy....

Doren — 6/8/2026 6:24:14 PM

SIRI will now keep an eye on your screens to better "help" you...

more clippy... don't worry you can trust them. They are not like "the others"

[Ron] Apple unveils next generation of Apple Intelligence, Siri AI, powerful parenta...

Ron — 6/8/2026 2:23:21 PM

Apple unveils next generation of Apple Intelligence, Siri AI, powerful parental controls, and an expansive set of software improvements

Today, during the Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple previewed its upcoming software releases that will deliver the next generation of Apple Intelligence and introduce Siri AI, an entirely new version of Siri that is profoundly more intelligent, knowledgeable, and capable. The releases also bring powerful and intuitive new features to help parents create safe digital experiences for kids, as well as improvements that further elevate the software design and performance of Apple products while making them more responsive, delightful, and easier to use with iOS 27, iPadOS 27, macOS 27, watchOS 27, visionOS 27, and tvOS 27.

bezinga.com

[Stock Puppy] 312 and change. [graphic] Okay here is music to go with it: [youtube video]

Stock Puppy — 5/28/2026 11:17:05 PM

312 and change.

Okay here is music to go with it:

[Stock Puppy] Somebody likes Apple this morning. 308 so far. Heywood may need to buy us all ...

Stock Puppy — 5/22/2026 9:34:11 AM

Somebody likes Apple this morning. 308 so far.

Heywood may need to buy us all lunch including now some ice cream!

[Heywood40] Yup

Heywood40 — 5/22/2026 12:00:22 AM

[Stock Puppy] So ... You're going to buy us all lunch? [graphic]

Stock Puppy — 5/21/2026 7:28:46 PM

So ...

You're going to buy us all lunch?

[Heywood40] Happy Birthday!!! My 26 cent AAPL shares are 28 years old today! My, how they'...

Heywood40 — 5/21/2026 4:11:54 PM

Happy Birthday!!!

My 26 cent AAPL shares are 28 years old today!

My, how they've grown!

[Stock Puppy] Wheeeeeee!!! [graphic] Apple is tough. [graphic]

Stock Puppy — 5/18/2026 1:37:54 PM

Wheeeeeee!!!

Apple is tough.

[Stock Puppy] Woo - woo! Broke 300!!! Okay, so my spouse always asks me these two things whe...

Stock Puppy — 5/15/2026 10:53:38 AM

Woo - woo!

Broke 300!!!

Okay, so my spouse always asks me these two things when landmark Apple stock events occur,

1) "When will you sell?"

Cough.

2) "When will Apple stock split?"

Cough.

She stopped asking about the mink coat.

[Stock Puppy] Wouldn’t someone throw a few Pennie’s into the ring so that Apple will be a nice...

Stock Puppy — 5/13/2026 1:11:45 PM

Wouldn’t someone throw a few Pennie’s into the ring so that Apple will be a nice round $300???

[Stock Puppy] Hi! Close just under $295 I'd say aloha, but ... hi! Anybody sell? [graphic]

Stock Puppy — 5/12/2026 8:44:48 PM

Hi!

Close just under $295

I'd say aloha, but ... hi!

Anybody sell?

[Stock Puppy] Yay! Close today at 293.32 with an intraday high of 294.76! [graphic] Cricket...

Stock Puppy — 5/8/2026 8:06:52 PM

Yay!

Close today at 293.32 with an intraday high of 294.76!

Crickets

Come on people - wake up!

? Everybody here went back home to ?

I know, everyone sold their stock and they're Appleless!

[Heywood40] Considering I paid 26 cents a share, a quarterly dividend of 27 cents seems OK.

Heywood40 — 5/8/2026 8:01:07 PM

[Stock Puppy] ... and Apple announced their dividend would go up a whopping $0.01 ! Hey - the...

Stock Puppy — 4/30/2026 8:49:09 PM

... and Apple announced their dividend would go up a whopping $0.01 !

Hey - they don't even make that denomination any more!

So now each share earns a dividend of $0.27 instead of $0.26/quarter.

Can't complain even though I do - it's money.

[NAG1] Apple with some nice results for the quarter. Every segment did well apple.com ...

NAG1 — 4/30/2026 8:04:10 PM

Apple with some nice results for the quarter. Every segment did well

apple.com

During the CC, they provided guidance of revenue growth of 14-17% with 47-48% gross margins. Stock was down in the after hours until they announced the guidance and then surged as high as $11 share. Presently up around $5 per share. I am just happy that they are in plus territory in the after hours.

[Art Bechhoefer] What the NYTimes says is usually not-on-yahoo. Art

Art Bechhoefer — 4/28/2026 11:21:49 AM

[NAG1] Hey John, We debated this article on the ped30 site. Most of us felt the slant ...

NAG1 — 4/27/2026 5:01:40 PM

Hey John,

We debated this article on the ped30 site. Most of us felt the slant of Apple in China was overly negative while probably mostly factually correct. Seems like the NYTimes never seems to miss a chance to place some blame at Apple's footsteps.

[John Koligman] The NY Times had a not very complimentary opinion piece the other day on Apple a...

John Koligman — 4/27/2026 1:01:02 PM

The NY Times had a not very complimentary opinion piece the other day on Apple along the same vein...

edit: Of course, many articles I have seen also say an iPhone made here would be a lot more expensive if Apple wanted to maintain it's margins.

Opinion

Guest Essay

Tim Cook Was Great for Apple Investors. He Was Not as Great for America.
April 23, 2026

Credit...Manuel Orbegozo/Reuters

By Patrick McGee

Mr. McGee is the author of “Apple in China.”

Tim Cook is ending his illustrious stint as the chief executive of Apple. A soft-spoken operator, he accomplished the near impossible, filling the shoes of the visionary co-founder Steve Jobs, turning the iPhone from a cultural phenomenon into a financial juggernaut and transforming his company into a $4 trillion goliath — increasing its market value by $682 million per day, on average, for 15 years. By the metrics investors care about, Mr. Cook is nothing short of a rock star.

But when one considers his role in the sweep of American history, his legacy grows more complicated, for much of Apple’s success is due to his move to consolidate virtually all of his company’s manufacturing in China.

The results have been profound. Apple under Mr. Cook played a significant role in the rise of China’s middle class, and produced the iPhone in enormous quantities at a low enough cost that roughly half of all Americans own one. His choices also escalated China’s economic standing and technological prowess to the point that its increasingly authoritarian leaders now see themselves as powerful rivals to the United States.

If President Xi Jinping’s imperialist instincts fade, Mr. Cook will be remembered for helping bring capitalism and liberalism to one of the most populous countries in the world. If the tensions between China and the United States continue to escalate, especially if Beijing makes good on its threats to attack the island of Taiwan — a democracy that happens to produce the vast majority of the world’s semiconductor chips — Mr. Cook will be remembered differently. He will be the man who not only squandered his company’s future (as it is still highly dependent on China), but also handed the West’s technological prowess to its biggest threat.

History can be a brutal editor. Consider Jack Welch, the long-lionized chief executive of General Electric. In a two-decade reign that ended in 2001, Mr. Welch earned shareholders an astonishing 21 percent annual return — just a nudge less than Mr. Cook’s — and was anointed “manager of the century” by Fortune magazine. His moves into financial engineering were the stuff of Wall Street legend — until the financial crisis exposed the company as hollowed out and recklessly overleveraged. By 2009, G.E. was begging for government-backed infusions of cash; its stock price had plummeted 85 percent. In 2022, the author David Gelles recast Mr. Welch as “the man who broke capitalism.”

Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox.

Mr. Cook started at Apple as a senior vice president of operations in 1998 and quickly overhauled Apple’s manufacturing strategy to rely on inexpensive labor overseas. By owning the process rather than owning the factories, Apple could retain control over production while offloading the manufacturing risks to suppliers. Mr. Cook also wrested royalties from app makers and moved into media streaming and advertising, all part of a “services” push that was twice as profitable as the hardware Apple sold.

Year after year, Mr. Cook removed microrisks from Apple’s business and made its financials smoother and more predictable. But at the same time, he proved blind to a macrorisk, moving the vast bulk of Apple’s operations to China just as it was turning into America’s fiercest adversary.

Based on my research, I am convinced that no company has done more to enable President Xi. Since 2008, Apple has worked with suppliers to train 30 million workers, principally in China. It has invested hundreds of billions of dollars in the mainland and facilitated an epic transfer of practical knowledge in how to make things to hundreds of Chinese factories. I wrote in my book that at two points, Apple’s Cupertino, Calif., headquarters was sending so many engineers to orchestrate production that it persuaded United Airlines to fly thrice weekly from San Francisco to Chengdu and Hangzhou, arguing it would buy so many first-class seats that the route would be profitable even if the rest of the plane were empty.

The price of doing business in China was turning a blind eye to its increasingly authoritarian impulses. Apple has removed tens of thousands of apps from its Chinese App Store at Beijing’s direction. It moved mainland Chinese users’ iCloud data to servers operated by a state-owned company, most likely exposing their personal data to the government. (Apple says it’s adhering to China’s laws.)

Mr. Cook has spoken out in favor of voting rights, the environment, gun control and L.G.B.T.Q. protections, but he has been conspicuously silent on China’s subjugation of Hong Kong protesters, the persecution of Uyghurs in Xinjiang or the 20-year sentence of the pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai. Most revealing of all, since taking over as Apple’s chief, he has not set foot in Taiwan — a thriving democracy, but a rogue province from Beijing’s perspective. That the chief of the world’s most iconic technology company won’t visit its most important chip suppliers is telling.

Apple is hardly alone in this. Many American companies, in their scramble for lower prices, have effectively given away swaths of their practical know-how, machinery, processes and talent to China. They gave President Xi the resources he needed to attain dominance in fields as disparate as rare-earth magnets, solar wafers, steel and pharmaceuticals. The billions China is pouring into building electric cars alone could leave Detroit in the dust.

China is building far more than it needs or than importers want. When Western economists criticize the resulting oversupply as inefficient, they’re missing the point. China’s goal isn’t to provide a return to shareholders. It is to control the world by commanding its material production. As the economist Noah Smith observed, “Profit is not the goal of war.”

Despite the Biden and Trump administrations’ efforts to slow the country’s momentum, China’s share of global industrial production is expected to rise to 45 percent by 2030, up from about 30 percent in 2025. And Beijing just imposed new rules to punish foreign companies taking action to divest from China.

Apple, for its part, has made tentative moves to expand iPhone assembly to India, but the bulk of its supply chain is still deeply rooted in China.

John Ternus, Mr. Cook’s successor, is relatively young, capable and ambitious. There’s reason to hope he can rethink and unlearn some of Mr. Cook’s core assumptions. But Mr. Cook isn’t retiring; he’s stepping up to executive chairman. And Mr. Ternus may not be able to chart a new course if the architect of the current strategy sits above him.

Of course, no businessman can ever truly know the historical consequences of his actions. The Cambridge historian Christopher Clark argued that the catastrophe that was the First World War resulted from the aggregation of rational, defensible decisions made by statesmen in a complex world. Mr. Cook’s decision to consolidate Apple’s operations into China fits that mold: Every decision to deepen his footprint in the country made sense at the time.

Those decisions also made Apple and its investors enormous sums of money. But stock prices don’t reflect the costs to our economy and our own gutted industries.

Patrick McGee covered Apple for six years for the Financial Times and is the author of “Apple in China.” He is now a features writer for the Financial Times and a columnist for the Free Press.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.

[NAG1] elmatador, I will disagree. I do think that buybacks have something to do with...

NAG1 — 4/27/2026 12:52:39 PM

elmatador,

I will disagree.

I do think that buybacks have something to do with helping maintain Apple's share price. But there have been other factors as well. Over that time period, Apple's earnings have gone from just under 60 billion dollars per year to around 120 billion dollars a year. Also, Apple's PE ratio in 2018 ranged from about 12 to about 18 from a quick glance. Today, it is sitting over 34. So I would say that the PE expansion and increases in earnings had more to do with Apple's increase in share price.

Now did buybacks have something to do with it. I think so. In 2018, I saw that Apple had about 4.8 billion shares. In 2020 they did a 4 to 1 split so would expect about 19 billion shares but presently there are about 15 billion shares outstanding. So Apple would have bought back about 20% of its shares, which, would contribute to the present share price but not be responsible for most of it.

As to layoffs, the biggest layoffs I could find were when Apple laid off about 700 workers a couple of years ago when they cancelled project Titan. The rest were much smaller and strategic. So I don't think layoffs had a real big impact on Apple's earnings. And the layoffs weren't tied to decreasing costs to improve earnings.

I am assuming that you quoted an article in your post. I found out the information posted here in less than 5 minutes. Sounds like whoever posted this did this as click bait by including Apple in the title. Sounds a bit lazy and disingenuous to me. All IMO.

[elmatador] What was behind Apple Inc. four fold valuation between 2018 and 2026? Apple Inc...

elmatador — 4/27/2026 5:21:25 AM

What was behind Apple Inc. four fold valuation between 2018 and 2026?
Apple Inc. became the first publicly traded U.S. company to reach a $1 trillion market valuation on August 2, 2018.
As of April 27, 2026, Apple Inc. (AAPL) has a market capitalization of approximately $3.98 trillion.

I tried to find out:
It is shares buyback. Aggressive share buybacks have been a primary driver of Apple's valuation, responsible for roughly one-third of the reduction in outstanding shares since 2012, directly boosting Earnings Per Share (EPS) and supporting a significantly higher share price.

A systematic reduction of shares—over $700 billion spent in ten years—has been described by some analysts as the key mechanism behind the company's "four-fold" feeling of valuation expansion, by allowing a slower-growing net income to generate higher Earnings Per Share.

Big Tech Companies are firing employees to raise money for shares buyback.

Many large technology companies are simultaneously laying off employees while authorizing or executing massive share buyback programs, a combination that often acts to boost stock prices and increase shareholder value.

While companies formally cite reasons such as "streamlining," "economic uncertainty," and "reallocating resources toward AI" for the job cuts, the concurrent high-volume stock buybacks indicate that cash is being directed toward investors rather than employee retention.