Stock Update 1.0
Some of you may recall the February post in which I announced my first venture into the stock market. It's been almost exactly eight months since my initial $2,000 investment, and I thought I'd give y'all an update as to the status of my arguably dubious portfolio.
My relationship with PCBK was relatively short lived. Falling back on the pre-investment rules of thumb handed down by my uncle Mark, I sold off all but one of the shares after they lost 10% of their value. I ended up being one of the lucky people to invest in a financial institution prior to the now infamous sub prime lending debacle. Even though Pacific Continental doesn't have any sub prime exposure, the chilling of investor confidence in the lending market has to date driven their stock price down more than 20%. I was smart/lucky to have made it out when I did.
My stock in Apple is a different story. I used the money from my PCBK divestment to buy additional shares of AAPL, and pulled an extra few bucks out of savings to snag a few more. I now own 22 shares, for which I paid a total of $2,182.20 (including transaction fees).
Now, I'll be the first to admit that I know virtually nothing about the stock market. All that I know I've learned from Mark, who, despite the inevitable downswings and occasional disaster, has made a killing by trading individual stocks and funds on his own. One of the first things he told me when I mentioned that I was interested in buying stock in Apple is that it's best to invest in the stuff you know the most about. So, back in February, when I saw that Apple was trading well below its historic highs, and as I was following all of the Apple phone speculation, I figured it was as good a time to buy as any. I knew Apple had something big on the horizon and I wanted it. I also knew tons of people who were buying Mac products for the first time, and had a general sense that the only place for Apple to go was up.
My first shares of Apple cost me $84.43 a piece. They've since announced record earnings and market share, launched the iPhone and the new (ridiculously hot) iMac, and updated iLife and a few other things. Plus, we still haven't seen an earnings report which reflects their acquisition of Logan. And Steve Jobs recently said there would be even more groundbreaking announcements in the months to come (presumably non-Logan related). Today AAPL stock closed at $167.86, just $0.05 off the record high. I suspect I will have doubled my money by month's end.
So now what? Do I stick my earnings in a mutual fund or keep rolling with Apple? I don't have any doubt that Steve meant what he said, and their market share is clearly still growing by leaps and bounds. I'm inclined to keep my money with them for the long haul, but I don't want to be greedy. I guess I could sell half and stick that money somewhere safe, and keep the rest with Apple. What do you guys think?
My relationship with PCBK was relatively short lived. Falling back on the pre-investment rules of thumb handed down by my uncle Mark, I sold off all but one of the shares after they lost 10% of their value. I ended up being one of the lucky people to invest in a financial institution prior to the now infamous sub prime lending debacle. Even though Pacific Continental doesn't have any sub prime exposure, the chilling of investor confidence in the lending market has to date driven their stock price down more than 20%. I was smart/lucky to have made it out when I did.
My stock in Apple is a different story. I used the money from my PCBK divestment to buy additional shares of AAPL, and pulled an extra few bucks out of savings to snag a few more. I now own 22 shares, for which I paid a total of $2,182.20 (including transaction fees).
Now, I'll be the first to admit that I know virtually nothing about the stock market. All that I know I've learned from Mark, who, despite the inevitable downswings and occasional disaster, has made a killing by trading individual stocks and funds on his own. One of the first things he told me when I mentioned that I was interested in buying stock in Apple is that it's best to invest in the stuff you know the most about. So, back in February, when I saw that Apple was trading well below its historic highs, and as I was following all of the Apple phone speculation, I figured it was as good a time to buy as any. I knew Apple had something big on the horizon and I wanted it. I also knew tons of people who were buying Mac products for the first time, and had a general sense that the only place for Apple to go was up.
My first shares of Apple cost me $84.43 a piece. They've since announced record earnings and market share, launched the iPhone and the new (ridiculously hot) iMac, and updated iLife and a few other things. Plus, we still haven't seen an earnings report which reflects their acquisition of Logan. And Steve Jobs recently said there would be even more groundbreaking announcements in the months to come (presumably non-Logan related). Today AAPL stock closed at $167.86, just $0.05 off the record high. I suspect I will have doubled my money by month's end.
So now what? Do I stick my earnings in a mutual fund or keep rolling with Apple? I don't have any doubt that Steve meant what he said, and their market share is clearly still growing by leaps and bounds. I'm inclined to keep my money with them for the long haul, but I don't want to be greedy. I guess I could sell half and stick that money somewhere safe, and keep the rest with Apple. What do you guys think?
posted by B S Goldsmith at 10/09/2007 05:47:00 PM
5 Comments:
I personally think that––baring a major, unexpected announcement––Apple will probably decline a bit after Christmas.
I'm a less bullish about the iPhone’s continued success. Because, although it's cool and easy-to-use, it's gimped more than Logan's fantasy football skills. On the other hand, they have yet to launch the device in a single international territory. And I’ve heard app support may happen as soon as next Spring.
Also, the iPod looks shakier now, even with the fancy new iPod touch, than it has in years. If Apple can help push large capacity solid state memory (at least 32-64GB) at an affordable price, I think that all of there devices (iPod and iPhone) will sell exponentially better. But now a lot of the SSD storage companies are backing off some of their bullish predictions for
But then again, there are the “new Newton” rumors and Apple TV. A MacBook that uses the multi-touch interface would be phenomenally awesome. As a proofreader, that would make my life cake. I could just write comment right on top of a PDF... much like I would a standard piece of paper. And the Apple TV isn’t anywhere near it’s potential right now. I think the current version is basically a piece of shit. But it could easily rock... with DVR support. Yet, these are still just rumors.
In other words, I don’t really know what I’d do with Apple stock. I can rationally see it going significantly up or down in the next year. But just in terms of playing the stock market, it seems like you might be better off moving some of that money to another company just so that you don’t have all your eggs in one basket.
Of course, I want to clearly disclaim that I’m not giving you investment advice.
Invest in Yen.
dance with the one that brung ya
You probably should listen to Goldman Sachs over me.
Brad, that's Mormon dance talk.
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