Research archive for AAPL

Apple have stepped it up a notch in the race for content. They have just signed former HBO boss Richard Plepler as a producer for Apple TV Plus for five years. Plepler spent 27 years at HBO which won 160 Emmys while he was in charge.

Apple is at all time highs with a share price of $303 and a market cap of $1.3 trillion. If you had bought the share one year ago you would have doubled your money. Just astonishing considering the size and scale of the business.

Globally the number of installed 5G networks is growing rapidly. In South Africa Rain has already launched its 5G network. To use the super fast network though will require a special cellphone or router, so your current iPhone won't cut it.

One could argue that Apple is the most important holding in Vestact New York portfolios. Although we have slightly more customers who hold Visa, we have held Apple for longer, and it is an easier company to understand. We started accumulating them November 2008 when Steve Jobs was still the CEO and they had just released the iPhone. Our first client purchase was at $13.70 per share. Believe it or not, we switched all of our clients then out of Nokia and into Apple.

According to Yahoo finance, Apple is back on top of the charts in terms of market capitalisation. It is often hard to tell because the companies are in the middle of big share buyback programs. The throne is currently changing hands between Apple and Microsoft.

This is why it is so important to have a closed ecosystem with over a billion loyal subscribers. How do you spell MOAT? Apple is reportedly considering a subscription bundle for Apple Music and its Streaming service Apple TV Plus.

I was interested to read recently about Apple's Advanced Manufacturing Fund which invests in partnerships with suppliers to support and develop key research projects in the US, at companies that make parts for Apple devices.

Ben Evans is a partner at Andreessen Horowitz (also known as 'a16z'), a venture capital firm in Silicon Valley that invests in software companies. His biography page says "I try to work out what's going on and what will happen next".

The new three camera iPhone has arrived! The three lenses are Telephoto, Wide and Ultra-wide; all so that you can take that perfect Instagram shot. Here is a 2-minute video from Apple, summing up what they launched at the event last night - Apple Event in a flash. When I watched the video this morning, it had 9.5 million views, then I refreshed my page 30 minutes later and it had over 10 million views. So Apple will make a few bucks from Google. Nice.

My favourite academic of all time Prof. Scott Galloway once said that "the things that we're afraid of, are not the things that usually get us." For example, I'm deathly afraid of sharks but I am more likely to die from falling off my bed than a shark attack, while learning how to surf in Cape Town's Atlantic seaboard.

Did you see that Apple has finally released its credit card? They are partnering with Goldman Sachs and Master Card (unfortunately). The card is designed to integrate with your phone to make it easier to track your spend, there are increased security features, and it is easier just to tap and pay. They are aiming at having low interest rates and no fees. Oh, and the card is made out of titanium. Fancy!

Apple reported earnings of which my colleague Paul covered in detail here. The stock closed up over 4.5% on the following trading day, adding the market value of Dell in just one trading session. Why Dell? Well according to Prof. Scott Galloway, my hero, 15 years ago at Davos, Michael Dell (basically a father figure to me) said that Apple should be sold for scrap, oops!

Apple released its quarterly profit date update last night, after the market close. This was the one that I had been waiting for, as I explained earlier this month. I was eager to see how Apple's lower number of shares in issue (as a result of aggressive share buybacks) would affect earnings per share and the company rating. I was not disappointed!

Yesterday at the annual Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple announced the all-new redesigned retro, cheese-grater inspired Mac Pro. The 2019 professional computer boasts high processing power, which comes at a high price of only $5 999.

Apple is our second most widely held stock in Vestact portfolios in New York, so it's worth checking in on it often. It's an interesting investment, because it's one of the world's most valuable companies by market capitalisation, and it is also absurdly cheap.