Is it time to short Apple?

I posted something seven years ago suggesting the share price of Apple was a little ambitious.

At the time, Apple stock was trading at about fifty bucks. (post split $ )

Get out, I said!

You can make money shorting this, I said.

Apple closed over two hundred bucks today.


Sorry.


I sincerely hope nobody took my advice on that one.

However, I get a few right too. I recall pestering folks to buy oil futures back when it was twenty-five bucks a barrel. Then it went to what, $140 or something ridiculous?

Those few and far between people who listened to me made a killing. Unfortunately, I didn't.

I was in bankruptcy at the time. And I was too stupid to realize that you could have your left hand in bankruptcy and your right hand making a killing, simultaneously. That's a more important lesson than anything you're going to learn in business school.

My dear Tante Hilde used to have a little plaque in her kitchen; "We get too soon old and too late smart."


When I was thirty, I already knew that was true.

Today, I can taste and smell the truth of it.

SEC bigs obviously read this blog

How else to explain that only a week or two after I call out Musk over his "going private" ruminations, the normally inert SEC has launched a full-bore investigation of Musk's errant tweet?

Now, I fully acknowledge that any investment advice I've ever ladled out is not worth shit.

I've been advising folks to short Amazon since it hit $200.

I've been advising folks to short Apple for four or five years...

Ya, I know... folks who used to have a couple millions in the bank are regulars at the food bank now because they thought I knew what I was talking about.

I thought I did too.

Sorry.


But sometimes I'm on the right track.

That "420" reference was the tip-off for me... Ya, OK Elon, you're just fucking with us now...

Two months later the Securities and Exchange Commission investigative team comes to the same conclusion...


Remember, you read it here first.

If you're not buying your kid a new laptop every year, you're obviously a negligent parent

That's my take-away from this headline at USA Today; Back to school: picking the right laptop.

Hey, if you picked the right laptop last year, you don't need a new one this year! In fact, if you pick the right laptop, it should pretty much see Junior through a four year degree!

If it doesn't, I'd say you picked the wrong laptop.

Funny how this kind of presumed acceptance of planned obsolescence is now taken for granted by the folks who are planning the obsolescence.

Of course the most important back-to-school purchase is that new laptop!

Do you want your kid to be the only one in the class with last year's laptop?

What kind of negligent parent are you anyway?

What will their friends think?

What's gonna happen to Junior's self-esteem?

Hell, once they see what a loser parent you are, what are your friends gonna think?

This USA Today story is a perfect example of industry propaganda being passed off as "news."

It's propaganda for the industry in general and for Apple in particular.

It's bullshit from top to bottom and end to end.

Pot addled hillbilly notices Samsung making Apple sauce months before Wall Street Journal

Recently there's been a flurry of debate over whether Apple is losing their coolness factor. Ian Sherr and Evan Ramstad triggered the debate with this article in the Wall Street Journal a few weeks ago.

That's almost six months after Falling Downs raised the same question.

C'mon boys, if you're reading this blog, give credit where credit is due!

RIM takes 4% jump day after being declared "dead in the water"

Pacific Crest Securities is the go-to shop for Silicon Valley start-ups looking to go public.

So when one of their junior analysts wrote a disparaging opinion about Research In Motion the other day it was big news.

James Faucette declared the new BB 10 OS "dead in the water."

That's not unexpected coming from a shop that has championed android app providers and Facebook and the Silicon Valley status quo.

James might be right.

But he might not be.

What I hear from BB insiders is that they love the BB 10, and pretty much all of them own at least one Apple or android platform.

And RIM isn't a Silicon Valley start-up.

Their break-up value is still at least 50% above their market cap.

I'm still seeing a buy here. Worst case scenario sees a straight line going forward.

If BB 10 gets traction, the sky is the limit.