If Apple keeps going up like it has been most of this week, it looks like they'll break $200 in a couple days... So, baring profit taking, Apple should look good for the next little while.

It reached a high again today of 196.83 but closed near the low of 187.39 which tells me people are selling off the shares but the selling doesn't appear to be drastic. In fact the last couple of days have been a sell off for the shares. Sell off is normal during this time of year as people take cash to buy lexus, rolex, houses, gifts and such for the holiday season.

Whether Apple Stock hits $200.00/shares depends greatly on how the overall market performs. So if the market rebounds, so will Apple Stock.

I have faith that both the overall market and Apple Stock will do well in the coming months ahead.

It traded above $200.00 today for the first time in its history:) even though it closed at 198.95. I'm still awaiting the 1qtr08 in which they are expected to earn $1.57/share which is a 37% increase in the same qtr last year.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/071226/apple_mover.html?.v=7

...today I can think of a reason buying at $200 would be a bad idea

Apple beats estimates of $1.57/share
 

First Quarter results for Apple is muted with free fall in the global markets.

With the general market in a sell off, it would be difficult for Apple to rise in this environment even though they beat the analysts' estimates. They earned $1.76/share which breaks a new record for them; same quarter last year they earned $1.14/share. So this is a 54% increase over last quarter.

Next quarter will be lower than this quarter because it doesn't include December and all the holiday intoxication is wearing off.

Now is NOT a good time to buy but the time to buy will be when the general market turns positives and Apple is on the upswing again. Keep in mind, with Apple's growth, they will be one of the 1st companies to strongly rebound when the bull market returns.

So if you can't stomach the loss or drop in profit, sell your lot and jump back in when the overall general market turns around. It's hard to say when that will occur. But when it does, will you be ready?

I have a stock trader friend who always tells me "buy on weakness, sell on strength." To him this would be the perfect time to buy, and if it went lower, he would probably buy again.

Financially speaking, nothing has changed about Apple. As roncross just mentioned, it's really the global market that's doing this. So...unless the market crashes this might (might) be a great time to buy. But honestly, the 18 point drop I see today is enough to scare me off, I was thinking of buying yesterday...but I think I'm going to want to see some amount of stability before dipping my hand it.

Wow! Horrible day for Apple, despite the earnings Ron mentioned above. Down almost 15% at the time of this posting, and over 30% this month alone. The overall market has been down around 10%, which is awful for one month, but Apple has been hit harder than most. Lots of selling off and protecting profits, I'd guess, but also some negativity about their projected earnings.

Hold!

What I don't entirely understand is that Apple routinely projects their earnings to be lower than WallStreets expectations, and people routinely ignore that.

But hey, bear markets tend to smack around tech stocks. Just take a look at Google, not quite as dramatic, but the same basic idea. Basic goods should be up though, I checked some construction and metal stocks earlier, and they've been trending upwards.

Could be a good time to buy? :) I'm no financial analyst, but Morningstar rates Apple's fair market value at $160.00. It closed at $139.07 today.

What I've done through the years is let it go up around 25% or so, then sell off the proft and re-invest in something different (bond ETFs like SHY or TLT these days). That locks in your profits and leaves a core amount to go on earning -- or not. I was close to that 25% in early January but am below my investment now. It'll come back up, I'm sure.

If you really think it will come back you might as well buy again now. That way if you bought 10 shares at 190, then 10 shares at 130, you would have 20 shares at a price of 160. So you can make some more money that way. But you'd need to be sure they are going to come back...

Personally, I want to wait until it starts to stabilize. A lot of that major analysts still have Apple targeted at 200+, but, analysts have been wrong before. If it starts up again...who knows.

I would wait until the market is more positive.
 

There is something wrong with more than half of these analysts. Most of them are strictly technical without understanding the companies whose shares they are buying. Others are completely emotional about the company and forget the fundamentals of the company and what drives earnings and stocks to increase.

As we all know it's hard to make a profit in todays market, Ok, I sold off at an 8% loss when I started to see it turn the other way. There were mainly two reasons for me selling the shares.

The first is because the overall market was looking bad very bad. It is very very difficult for any stock to withstand this kind of selloff. The second reason is that because at the time I bought, Apple's P/E was 43 which is very high for Apple. There P/E to date is now 30 which is line with their historical P/E value, although I would like to see their P/E drop another 10 points before buying into it again.

There are two very important things to remember when investing in stocks that could save you tons of $$$$. First, never ever short a stock with a high P/E, it could be disastrous.:( Second, a stock with a high P/E will fall much more rapidly if things start to go south. So in Apple's case, you are damn if you do and damn if you don't. High P/E stocks are less predictable with higher growth returns so if you get into trouble, it's better to sell.

I think if you are investing for the long term with Apple, you shouldn't really worry about these short term swings because they are temporary. We all know with Apple being cash rich, they are not going out of business anytime soon. They are a very competitive companies that is able to set new trends in their products.

With their $$$, they may start to acquire other companies because this is what cash rich companies do. So if you are able to invest in companies that Apple will acquire in the future, you could make some good $$$.

I will buy Apple Stock again but I will wait until the market reaffirms itself and people are willing to spend their $$$ on these products.

What should Apple do? It should close down the company and give the money back to the shareholders, that would be the right thing to do.

</Dell>

That's funny:) but Apple doesn't have enough $$$ to pay off all the share holders. Their market cap is 10 to 30 times more than the company is worth at least in my estimation. If Apple wants to really help reward the share holders, they would start buying back shares (not all of them) at these low prices and that would effectively increase the value of each share while strengthening up Apple position at the same time. They could use all their excess cash for this but I believe that they are on the hunt to acquire other companies with all their $$$. In todays markets, businesses come cheap.

If anyone is aware of which company Apple is likely to buy, they can invest in the other company and make instant profit on the news.

As of Feb. 20, here's the bad news:

AAPL is down 36.4% on the year
DELL is down 19%
MSFT is down 19.5%
NASDAQ is down 10.8%

So why has Apple fallen so much more significantly than two of its close competitors?

They built years of ever-increasing hype, so the stock price was based on all the assumptions that they'd continue to produce ground-breaking products. The last announcements were good products, but nothing more than evolution of existing products. The analysts fell out of love. "What have you done for me...lately?"

Your answer is in the P/E.
 

On the contrary, this is excellent news, I hoping that it falls further.:) You can buy more of Apple stock at a cheaper price than you would have paid for it 3 months ago. Apple is still the same company with great products and still has positive earnings so you shouldn't feel concerned about buying more at a lower price.

Both Dell, MSFT and HP have a P/E under 18 so they are not likely to drop as fast as Apple given the same earnings. Calvarez is correct that the others companies were not riding on a high horse so those stocks didn't fall as much. Apple's P/E is now 26 which is where it has traded in 2005 but still higher than the other companies in its class. In this market there is no way that AAPL could sustain those high prices.

If the overall market continue to be a challenge, look for AAPL stock to fall to a level that would be in line with the P/E of the other companies. This would truly be a reason to load up on their stock and wait for the elevator ride up.

What ever you do, don't short AAPL stock because you never know when a rally is around the corner.

It wasn't all that many years (maybe 45) ago when a P/E in the range of 8 to 10 was the norm for a successful company. Over the last few decades, that expectation has slowly moved upward. Historically, a P/E of 26 is way too high.

My concern is the market is still artificially high. Interest rates have been forced down to very low levels (thank you government) and people need a place to make money with their savings. If inflation fears result in much higher interest rates, I would anticipate a flow of capital away from the market. If this happens, it may be a long time before AAPL fully recovers. That's fine if you' re in it for the long haul.

For sure, though, I wouldn't listen to me. I sold my last 100 shares of AAPL in the early 90s at $40 --- cubes had cracks or something like that --- and missed the big run up. No guts, no glory.

Yep, it's probably a good time to buy, although that might get even better. Apple has had good earnings and should continue to do so for some time. In the end, that's more predictive of the success of a stock than anything else.

"....it's time in the markets, not timing the markets...";)

Has anyone been watching the stock lately? Would you care to elaborate?