[comp.sys.mac.system] * What's the deal with Apple's stock????

gaines@mars.njit.edu (Starman) (05/23/91)

Howdy,
	I've been wondering about the behavior of Apple's stock lately.
I don't own any, but I was expecting it to climb after System 7 was
released. As of March 1, it was @50, reached 70, and was 45 yesterday.
What's the deal? 

===========================================================================
"We seek peaceful coexistance!"		      |		 Mike
"Yeah, and monkeys will fly outa my butt!"    |	  gaines@mars.njit.edu
===========================================================================
		Wayne's World: The Next Generation...NOT!
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peirce@outpost.UUCP (Michael Peirce) (05/23/91)

In article <1991May23.045710.3521@njitgw.njit.edu>, gaines@mars.njit.edu (Starman) writes:
> Howdy,
> 	I've been wondering about the behavior of Apple's stock lately.
> I don't own any, but I was expecting it to climb after System 7 was
> released. As of March 1, it was @50, reached 70, and was 45 yesterday.
> What's the deal? 

Why would it go up?

Seriously.  Stock prices go up for a variety of reasons.  Wall Street
pays the most attention to the profits of a firm, and frankly Apple's
aren't living up to expectations.  The new lower priced Macs are selling
well, but their margins are much slimmer than the older Macs.

So until Apple can turn around the profits story (this is why they
are planning to lay off some people - chop that overhead), the stock
won't be shooting up.

(Personally, I think Apple is making good progress in controlling costs
and I think their new focus on market share is best for the long haul
and view the recent stock retreat as a opportunity to buy some cheap
Apple shares)

-- michael

--  Michael Peirce         --   outpost!peirce@claris.com
--  Peirce Software        --   Suite 301, 719 Hibiscus Place
--  Macintosh Programming  --   San Jose, California 95117
--           & Consulting  --   (408) 244-6554, AppleLink: PEIRCE

figmo@eris.berkeley.edu (Lynn Gold) (05/24/91)

In article <1991May23.045710.3521@njitgw.njit.edu> gaines@mars.njit.edu (Starman) writes:
>Howdy,
>	I've been wondering about the behavior of Apple's stock lately.
>I don't own any, but I was expecting it to climb after System 7 was
>released. As of March 1, it was @50, reached 70, and was 45 yesterday.
>What's the deal? 

Apple also announced there would be layoffs.  Stock always takes a
nosedive when a company has layoffs (as does employee morale, but
that's another matter).

--Lynn
-- 
ARPA: figmo@eris.Berkeley.Edu      UUCP: ...!eris.Berkeley.Edu!figmo  

QUOTE OF THE MONTH:  (asked to RMS at a free software conference at NASA)
"Have you ever used any free software word processors?

chad@oscar.cs.byu.edu (Chad) (05/24/91)

--
In article <1991May23.171414.19119@agate.berkeley.edu>,
figmo@eris.berkeley.edu (Lynn Gold) writes:
|>In article <1991May23.045710.3521@njitgw.njit.edu>
|>gaines@mars.njit.edu (Starman) writes:
|>>Howdy,
|>>	I've been wondering about the behavior of Apple's stock lately.
|>>I don't own any, but I was expecting it to climb after System 7 was
|>>released. As of March 1, it was @50, reached 70, and was 45
|>yesterday.
|>>What's the deal? 
|>
|>Apple also announced there would be layoffs.  Stock always takes a
|>nosedive when a company has layoffs (as does employee morale, but
|>that's another matter).
|
That is not always true.  When DEC announced force reduction the stock
went up I believe.  It showed they were trying to be serious about
cost-cutting.  Announcment of layoffs <> lower stock.

*************************************************************
Chad Leigh 
Brigham Young University / on leave from DEC
chad@yvax.byu.edu /  chad@norge.enet.dec.com
*************************************************************

bellamy@covax.commerce.uq.oz.au (05/24/91)

In article <1991May23.045710.3521@njitgw.njit.edu>, gaines@mars.njit.edu (Starman) writes:
> Howdy,
> 	I've been wondering about the behavior of Apple's stock lately.
> I don't own any, but I was expecting it to climb after System 7 was
> released. As of March 1, it was @50, reached 70, and was 45 yesterday.
> What's the deal? 


Finance 101:  Available information will be compounded into the 
share price when it becomes public.  The fact that Sys 7.0 was _planned_ to 
be released on 13 May has been known for months.  The only change in SP 
expected on 13 May would have been if they had missed; you would have seen 
a substantial fall.  Actually the Market puts a probability estimate on 
these things.  The Market was probably 99% sure on 10 May that they were 
going to release (all those Golden reports) so there may have bee a small but 
undetectable change (increase) on 13 May (the last 1%).

If System 7.0 was going to increase the SP of Apple Corp, then the SP
increase would have been (mainly) in April, 1989 (?) when I think the 
planned features of the next OS (7.0) were announced.  Slight increases would
have occurred since then as news that certain milestones (e.g. alpha, beta
realeases) had been met.  Of course this would not have all been one way, when
Apple announced the ommission of the New Print Architecture, Scripting etc the
price may have fallen. 

BTW, this is not a flame, not even a candle. :-)

Cheers

-- 
David E. Bellamy        Email: bellamy@covax.commerce.uq.oz.au
Dept. Commerce, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, AUSTRALIA

kscott@cgl.ucsf.edu (Kevin Scott) (05/24/91)

gaines@mars.njit.edu (Starman) writes:
>	I've been wondering about the behavior of Apple's stock lately.
>What's the deal? 


Apple's stock did rise, as (I) expected, against a falling market!

But fell with everybody elses stock when compaq released a low dividend.
The whole computer industry paid the price in our skittish (stupid) market.

Then the 7.0 debacle proceeded along, much to the chagrin of profeesionals
on the net who had to release a negative rating and a few (read one) analyst's
ratings of the stock was (oooh) downgraded, causing severe repercussions of
a few points on the already hurting stock.  Don' speculate on the market unless
you can afford to gamble in casinos.  Of course, there is always the apple
ethics of buy in summer, sell in winter (or is it the other way around? surely
someone at apple.com can read this and correct me).

nkb@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Norman K Bucknor) (05/25/91)

The primary reason for the stock fall was the Apple announcement that
profits would be down slightly or remain the same even though there was
an 85% increase in sales for this past quarter (compared to last year). 
Most people obviously
felt that an almost doubling in sales volume should have perked up the
profits to a greater degree and the news was perceived as bad (even though
the drop in profits wasn't more than a few percentage points from the same
quarter last year.

Apparently, too much of the sales increase consisted of low margin Macs
(primarily Classics). This also precipitated the latest round of layoffs
(maybe Sculley should take a million or two out of his paycheck to help
out the ol' bottom line :> ).


Norman