
Apple is $20 a share away from being the first $1 trillion company - doener
http://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/apple-stock-price-is-popping-after-crushing-earnings-2017-11-1006736397
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bhhaskin
Dawn of a new era. The era of mega corporations.

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hkmurakami
Isn't Standard Oil considered to be the first $1T company in today's dollars?

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Fricken
Petro China broke a trillion in adjusted dollars. Saudi Aramco is estimated to
be worth 2-7 trillion.

On the public market the Dutch East India Company hit 7.4 trillion at the
height of tulipmania.

[https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2012/08/22/a-history-...](https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2012/08/22/a-history-
of-ridiculously-big-companies.aspx)

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ineedasername
Okay, a bit of ill-informed armchair analysis here, so get your grains of salt
ready:

Strong stock price yes, and high gross profits, but Apple's P/E ratio is worse
than many of the others in the upper echelons of profit. Google's is worse
still, but there at least is significant diversification in the tech sector
making it a safer "disruption-resistant" bet.

And I don't see much room for growth in Apple. Barring surprises, which have
been absent in the last few years, Apple has an uphill battle improving its
market share globally. Compare this to the emerging nations of the world that
decidedly cannot buy new iPhones in quantity, but can buy commodity-priced
Android hardware.

There's still a place for "premium" in the mix too: During the rise of
Android, Apple & iOS were looked to as best of breed, head & shoulders above
the rest. But in the last 2-3 years, while this is still the case, the gap
between Apple and flag-ship competitors on the Android side has narrowed
significantly. They lag on somethings too, such as late-to-the-game screen
size increases where either aesthetics or inertia give them a blind spot. Or
maybe its that the Android ecosystem forces a lot more feature variation
because there's so many more handset manufacturers. I don't know.

It just seems like Apple is now competing mostly on market-hyping novelty
features, and that's a hard game to win in for very long. I'd be very bear-ish
on Apple if 1+ years pass without something a bit more wow.

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earenndil
Their business is almost entirely based off of iphones right now. If they
focus on improving their desktop and laptop brand, they may be able to get
some traction there. Perhaps if they make a lower-end line of computers or
phones -- although I doubt they'll do that since they want to be seen as a
'premium' brand. Google isn't really more diverse than apple, something like
90% of their revenue comes from adwords. They keep trying to diversify and
make a profit off of other venues, but they keep failing at it.

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abritinthebay
The iPhone is the lowest % of their revenue it’s been for a long time.

Your advice is the same as what every armchair analyst has been saying for 10
years. I see no reason to believe it’s gotten any higher quality now.

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ineedasername
Well, there's my grains of salt for me then too! At least I'm not getting paid
to get this stuff right, I'd hate to be a paid incompetent instead of just a
hobbyist at it.

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abritinthebay
Haha, yes, many of these professional “analysts” are merely professional
click-bait writers.

