Apple

A Close Look at AAPL and RIMM

– Posted in: Tutorials

Poring over the charts of bullion and the E-Mini S&Ps, we stalked a few trades but found no promising camouflage triggers to exploit. We also took a close look at Apple’s (AAPL) charts, finding things to like, although perhaps no longer to love; and at the charts of Research In Motion (RIMM), which could fall to as low as 5.67 from a current price of about 16.

My Predictions for 2012…

– Posted in: Commentary for the Week of March 8 Free

I hadn't intended to do a "Rick's Picks Predictions for 2012" because I'm skeptical that anyone could get it right. So many things could go wrong next year that it's difficult for me to imagine the world muddling through the month of February, let alone muddling along for another twelve months. Still, I'll give it my best shot in Friday's edition, since I've already skirted the topic in an interview yesterday morning with radio host Al Korelin. It's tempting to try to stand out from the pack, predicting things that few of my guru peers expect. However, I'll go out on a limb with this one here and now:  I expect Apple shares to be trading no higher than they are trading now, and perhaps significantly lower.  See you Friday!

The Dollar’s Ascent

– Posted in: Free Rick's Picks

The dollar's rally continues apace. A last-ditch flight to "safety" ahead of  Europe's collapse?  Whatever the reason, a Hidden Pivot target above 81.00(!) is starting to look compelling. Check out the update to my Dollar Index tout for further details.  Please note that I've also updated my trading advisory for Apple, a key bellwether.

Apple and Corn on the Menu

– Posted in: Free

Apple shares and March Corn yesterday signaled strong rallies ahead in the same way -- i.e., by slightly surpassing external peaks well to the left.  Check out my touts for both, since we'll be looking to jump aboard if the right opportunity should arise.

Savage Competition in Electronic Gadgets

– Posted in: Commentary for the Week of March 8 Free

With only a handful of players savvy enough to compete in the major leagues of tablet computing, competition has nonetheless erupted that is likely to hearten consumers, especially those who have tired of paying exorbitant prices for gadgets bearing the Apple logo. Yesterday, it was Amazon that stepped into the ring -- with Kindle Fire, a $199 tablet that will sell for less than half of the cheapest Apple model. The 7-inch display is only half the size of Apple’s, but as Hewlett Packard’s close-out sale for a similar device proved, buyers are willing and eager to forsake Apple products if the price is right. To be sure, Amazon has targeted the lower end of the market with a tablet that cannot do all of the tricks that iPad is capable of.  It lacks an embedded camera and microphone, for starters, and there is no 3G cellular connection, only Wi-Fi.  Give Amazon a little time, however – perhaps eight to twelve months -- and a fully-featured product will be able to go head-to-head with Apple’s best, but with the kicker of Amazon “content” to make it more than merely competitive. Amazon’s announcement, presented by CEO Jeff Bezos with Steve Jobs-like flair, comes on the heels of an announcement that Dish, through its recently acquired Blockbuster unit, will offer streaming movies and TV shows to compete with Netflix. Recall that Netflix shot itself in the foot last month with a horrific new pricing scheme that elicited a firestorm of protests from subscribers and enough cancellations to cause NFLX shares to collapse. Since July, they’ve fallen from $305 to a recent low of $125, or nearly 60 percent. Netflix founder Reed Hastings, who even now probably still doesn’t get it, responded with some pro forma blather about how he is sure Netflix

Why We Should Want Amazon to Lose Its Tax Fight

– Posted in: Commentary for the Week of March 8 Free

[This commentary drew such a heavy response Monday in the Rick's Picks forum -- 60 posts so far -- that I am letting it run for a second day. RA] We lean strongly libertarian on the issues of the day, especially when debating those who would raise taxes to feed the insatiable maw of Government. So why are we rooting for the revenuers in their battle to squeeze more tribute from the customers of retail giant Amazon?  That’s right: We’re hoping the company loses its knock-down, drag-out battle to avoid collecting taxes for cash-strapped states, even if it means online shoppers will ultimately pay billions more for their purchases.  The states want Amazon to collect and remit taxes wherever the company sells merchandise and irrespective of whether it has a physical presence where the sales are conducted. In the long run, we would argue, it will be better for consumers to go along with this than letting them continue to buy untaxed goods online.  In the end, leveling the retail playing field between virtual and brick-and-mortar sellers in this way will help avert the day when Amazon and other globally scaled sellers have driven most of their brick-and-mortar competitors into the ground. Such an outcome may be more likely than shoppers might care to imagine, as the chart of Best Buy (below) suggests. Shares of the big-box purveyor of consumer electronics, computers and appliances have fallen by half since last November, when they traded for as much as $45, and recently touched a three-year low of $22 on weak earnings.  To be sure, the Great Recession has played a significant role in the collapse of Best Buy’s once high-flying stock. But with the firm’s release of dismal sales figures for Q2, analysts have begun to question whether the retailer is becoming

Google Fires a Shot Across Apple’s Bow

– Posted in: Commentary for the Week of March 8 Free

We wish Google all possible success in taking on playground bullies Apple and Microsoft in a battle that has crucial implications for the use of patents to stifle competition. Google’s $12.5 billion purchase of cell phone maker Motorola Mobility, its largest acquisition to date, is a shot across the bow of more established competitors who would seek to throttle the search engine giant’s cell phone development and other promising technologies by suing them to death in patent court.  The Wall Street Journal recently detailed how high tech companies have been acquiring every patent they can get their hands on so that they stand a better chance of being predator rather than prey in patent litigation. Lawsuits over patents have become so ubiquitous that they are beginning to supersede innovation itself as the primary means through which high tech companies grow and prosper. In this respect, Google is the new kid on the block in head-to-head competition with firms like Microsoft and Apple that have been around since the 1980s.  As a relative newcomer to the technology scene, the company’s war-chest of patents was practically empty until recently. To play catch-up, Google has been on a tear acquiring patents directly or buying patent-rich firms outright, such as cell phone pioneer Motorola.  In late July, Google bought about a thousand pending and issued patents from IBM to build up its patent ammo. Many of these patents have little to do with the company’s core businesses of search and advertising. One reportedly covers ways of automatically adjusting a clock, and another deals with surface treatments for electrical contacts. In the hands of a company as innovative and aggressive as Google, every little patent helps to thwart other firms that would seek to stifle them. “As things stand today, one of a company’s best

Trillion Dollar Surplus a Corporate ‘Problem’

– Posted in: Commentary for the Week of March 8 Free

Where would you invest $76 billion if you had it?  That’s the size of Apple’s cash hoard at the moment, and it would appear that they have no better idea of what to do with all that money than you or I.  Apple isn’t the only company with this “problem,” if you could call having a mountain of spare cash in the bank a problem. According to Standard & Poor’s data reported by the Wall Street Journal the other day, the 500 largest U.S. companies alone currently hold cash or cash equivalents that totaled $963 billion at the end of the first quarter, up from $837 billion a year ago.  Tech companies in particular are glutted with cash they apparently cannot use. Microsoft’s got $60.9 billion sitting around; Google, $39.1 billion; and Cisco, $43.4 billion. What’s a company to do? Traditionally, high-tech companies have shunned paying dividends because shareholders expect the companies to use the cash more aggressively for growth. But the likes of Apple and Google have been growing plenty fast without dipping into their so-called war chests. Come to think of it, maybe they should start a war with China, Europe or Brazil.  Hasn’t war always been good for business? As for the excuse that they need to hold cash in case a great acquisition opportunity comes along, Apple, Google and numerous other NASDAQ world-beaters could borrow all they want for next to nothing, at any time.  And so they have been. We reported on the surge in corporate borrowing a while back, mystified as to why a corporate sector with nearly $2 trillion to spare was nevertheless borrowing hand-over-fist. The ostensible reason is that the money can be borrowed for nearly nothing – and so, why not?  Indeed.  Even so, we can’t help thinking that a wave

3 Key Stocks Head-Butt Major Hidden Pivot Targets

– Posted in: Commentary for the Week of March 8 Free

If a millennial tide of Fed funny-money can push the broad stock averages higher no matter what the economic climate, just imagine what it can do for the shares of companies with strong earnings growth in these recessionary times. In particular, Google, IBM and Apple have soared in recent days on stellar Q2 reports and giddy rumors. Yesterday it was Big Blue that took flight, gapping up five percent on news of exceptional top-line growth.  Even better for investors was that the company expects this growth to continue for at least the rest of 2011 in all of its lines: hardware, software and business services. We wrote here a long while back that IBM bonds were probably a safer and better bet than U.S. Treasurys, and we still think this is so. There were a few other blue chip companies on our short list that one could imagine will do pretty well even if economic activity in the U.S. sinks to depressionary levels. Johnson & Johnson, Disney, Caterpillar, 3M and Safeway come to mind, as well as Apple, which, despite its pricey merchandise, stands to rake in tens of billions of dollars over the years from nickel-and-dime sales of iTunes to an imponderably large number of music lovers. Google’s explosive short-squeeze came earlier in the week, when the stock gapped from 529 to 598 overnight – that’s nearly 14%! -- on the sensational earnings report that nearly everyone must have expected. Apple’s numbers were to have been reported after the close on Tuesday, but the stock seemed uncharacteristically subdued ahead of the announcement. This is probably because AAPL, even more than GOOG or IBM, has spent the last few weeks discounting the best news anyone could imagine.  Apple shares that traded as low as 310 on June 20 have since

Amidst the Tedium, Key Targets to Watch

– Posted in: Commentary for the Week of March 8 Free

Although our bullish outlook for stocks remains unchanged, the 900-point Dow rally we projected in late May hasn’t been the quite romp we were expecting. In fact, springtime’s tiresome ups and downs appear to be continuing into summer, and it now seems possible this behavior could persist well into August.  If so, the risk of financial loss will be lower in the coming weeks than the risk of being bored half to death. Yesterday’s price action underscored the stock market’s reluctance to do much of anything, even when conditions seem right.  Such as Sunday night.  For a rare change, it looked like the slimeballs who control stocks in the off-hours were on the ropes. Usually, they take shares down as far as possible Sunday evening in order to exhaust sellers just ahead of Monday’s opening. This allows Them to short-squeeze stocks ahead of the bell, catalyzed by virtually any crumb of news that could be construed as even remotely positive. This time, however, with index futures getting pounded overnight, the familiar stage-managed rebound was nowhere in sight.  Stocks in fact continued their fall for the first few hours of Monday’s session, with the Dow down by almost 200 points at the lows.  Then, just when it looked as though DaBoyz might get trampled, shares suddenly reversed and headed north, recouping half the day’s losses by the final bell. So how might the markets continue to bore us in the weeks ahead? For starters, we expect yesterday’s weakness to resume, bringing the September E-Mini S&P down to at least 1280.50 today or tomorrow.  With the futures trading for around 1301.00 as of this moment, the implied 20-point drop would spell a relapse of about 160 points for the Dow Industrials.  We’d be cautious buyers at that level, using the Hidden Pivot