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Technology Stocks : Apple Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: van wang who wrote (9507)	3/16/1998 2:40:00 AM
From: Eric Yang	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 213176

Hi Van, The recent rally can be deceptively tempting for shorts, but I would suggest that you read a few short articles on my web site to get a feeling of what you are getting into. macevolution.com I don't think there are many people who has shorted AAPL in the last 5 month that managed to live and tell about it. It's always possible to make money if your timing is good but personally I think there are so many better candidates to short at this time. Apple's recent rally isn't like the price hike back in Aug 6th.. This run up took place over the course of several weeks. The stock is making gains at a steady and healthy rate. From a shorts perspective it must have been slow and agonizingly painful. PE isn't everything. AAPL had a PE of infinity just a few month ago and yet it was a great buy in retrospect. There are a dozen reasons that make AAPL attractive to investors. They were discussed here on SI long before the recent rally. Without being a Mac diehard I think it's hard for you to understand the potential of this company and its products, but looking at the statistics there are quite a few bright spots. Book value is quite high, price/sales is low even during restructuring, cash position is healthy, and P/E was relatively low before the recent rally. I fully expect AAPL's profit to grow significantly over the next year. Of course it's important to re-evaluate the situation after every rally. Our next major opportunity to re-evaluate things will be Apr 15 when Q2 results have been announced. I think we're currently in the middle of a second rally...there should be another one at the end of the month...purely speculation but in a day or two I'll add another chart/short article to AAPL Investors page to explain why. Eric

To: van wang who wrote (9507)	3/16/1998 7:12:00 AM
From: Bill Ulrich	Respond to of 213176

&#147AAPL's price to sales is extremely low&#148 It's been worse&#151like many items on the ledger. &#147the company is backed into a corner and they are talking about developing at settop box&#148 This is a corner? No, this time last year was a corner. We're having a tea party in comparison. I take it you haven't been following this company very long? &#147I will take a shot and short the stock because of its valuation so far I have heard ntg from this thread that is substantive&#148 Only one way to find out&#151yes? Reminds me of that David T. guy who's been predicting a $4 share price for&#133gee, I dunno&#133ever since I got to SI and even before. The bright side is that you two could get together and compare notes. -MrB

To: van wang who wrote (9507)	3/16/1998 8:54:00 AM
From: Hugues	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 213176

What S. Jobs will do at Seybold It struck me this morning: there will be important news at Seybold, and it is predictable what it will be. First, it's obvious that S. Jobs would like to use Tuesday's s opportunity to make an announcement: - There will be great audience: media VIP, and all the industry's big shots. And it will be relayed to the public - S. Jobs will demo the 400 Mhz copper IBM machine. But he can't be reduced to the role of another company sales representant. He is not expected to, and he is not the character to. He must add something striking. So what will it be? I don't think there should be to many things, as it is diluting the effect, and as MacWorld and the share holder meetings are there to go in details and must be kept with something to say. What are the candidates ? - New CEO ? Keep it for the shareholder meeting - Disney partnership ? Unlikely to be in any finished stage (if ever considerable) - Apple Media Player Device ? Surely to soon to have any revolutionary concept available. Either poor news or kept for end of the year. So this leaves us with what everybody is waiting for: the public, the financial community, the software developers. And that is: The sub 1000$ Mac This has been called for long, it should not be too difficult to do, it has been hinted by Apple officials that they were working on it, and there have been more precise rumors lately (see www.macosrumors.com) And to make it complete, it would be bundled with Claris Works 4.0, and filemaker pro 3.0 trial. (Remember Apple reintegrated Claris). So you have not a computer, you have a complete working solution at a very affordable price. What will be the effect on the stock price ? The estimated 98 EPS won't change much, because this product is likely not to generate any additional margin. However, the PER could improve significantly, going from around 22 today to 28-30 in the next months. Why? because Apple would be addressing a bigger market, maybe twice the one it is targeting today, including corporate markets, who often don't need much of a processing power for word processing and spreadsheets. And apart from expanding the Mac user base for developers, this would lead the way to further upgrading. (there is significant more work to be done by Apple on one-to-one marketing) So, despite the recent rise in stock, I won't realize my gains, and keep them to grow in the next months.

To: van wang who wrote (9507)	3/16/1998 9:09:00 AM
From: Alan Newman	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 213176

I was looking at the CompUSA sale paper this weekend. Comparing what seemed to me to be similarly powered computers from Apple and IBM, the Apple computer was approximately $600 more. And, the IBM came with a bunch of Lotus software. I also am concerned that many corporations are not buying Macs any more. I think this has a two fold affect. First, the obvious loss of revenue. Secondly, and less obviously, I think that there is a tendency to buy the same PC at home that one has in the office. To "share" software, and to do work at home. The final proof is in the earnings. Alan

To: van wang who wrote (9507)	3/16/1998 9:56:00 AM
From: rhet0ric	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 213176

Hello Van Wang, It's good to have a new bear on the board, though I for one prefer more knowledgeable bears. If your criteria for shorting is bad fundamentals combined with bad sentiment, you should check out AOL. The subtitle of the thread is "Will it survive?", which is a pretty accurate description of the discussion. I know of only two bulls on the board. One of them works for AOL, and the other is clueless. PE is something like 300. Etc., etc. so far I have heard ntg from this thread that is substantive People just don't want to re-type their messages. You should do the work, not them. Check out Eric's site, or read the last 100 to 1,000 messages. rhet0ric