Tag Archives: AAPL

Intel’s Earnings Could Double At Full Capacity

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By Jim Brody:

Intel (INTC) is primarily a manufacturing company. They make and sell silicon chips. Like any manufacturing company, they need to keep the factory running at full capacity to maximize profits. Last year, Intel only used about half their capacity. This article addresses two issues: What can they do with the other half, and how much can that improve Intel’s earnings?

Intel’s full capacity is the equivalent of about 441,000 wafers (300 mm equivalent) per month. A 300 mm wafer is about 7×105 mm2. The total capacity can also be measured in square millimeters; it is 3.7 1011 mm2/yr. A 300 mm wafer is about 7×105 mm2, but in this article it will be easier to think of things in terms of 100 mm2 dies. One 300 mm wafer has about 700 of these 100 mm2


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Apple And Goldman Sachs Are An ‘Effective Team’

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By George Kesarios:

Apple (AAPL) has not really needed the services of Wall Street all that much ever since it went public in 1981. And even though Steve Jobs married a fixed income professional from Goldman Sachs (GS), he didn’t like the Wall Street types. He shunned Wall Street every chance he got.

Tim Cook however is not Steve Jobs. Tim Cook is more prone to get into bed with Wall Street than Steve Jobs was. And if you are going to get in bed with someone, why not get in bed with the best there is. I think it’s only natural for the number one company in the world to hook up with the number one firm on Wall Street. And on Wall Street, the best firm for many years now has been Goldman Sachs.

In reality however, and even though Steve Jobs has avoided Wall Street, Apple has a long history


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What Is Apple’s ‘Rate Of Return’ For The Next 3 Years?

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By Chuck Jones:

As most everyone knows, Apple (AAPL) increased its dividend and stock buyback program on April 23. The dividend went from $2.65 to $3.05 per quarter or $12.20 per year. The company increased its share buyback program from $10 billion to $60 billion and plans for it to be completed by December 2015. By December 2015 the company will have returned $100 billion to shareholders which was about 26% of its market cap at the time of the announcement.

It is worthwhile to calculate the yearly “Rate of Return” or the combination of dividend yield and the decrease in shares outstanding that this program could achieve. Calculating the dividend yield is easy. At the current share price of $457 the shares yield is 2.7%.

Buyback Impact to Share Count

To determine the buyback portion of the "Rate of Return" one needs to adjust for how much of it will be


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Apple: The Bottom Has Yet To Be Reached

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ByQuandaryFX:

On October 3rd of 2012, I suggested shorting Apple (AAPL). Rather than basing this recommendation on product reviews or my subjective opinion, I relied exclusively on objective analysis. In this article, I will perform similar analysis and express my opinion that the bottom has yet to be reached in Apple’s shares.

A History of Returns

In order to analyze any security, investors must cut through all opinion and subjective matter and focus exclusively on variables which can be quantified and tested. Through the testing of our ideas, we can know what actually drives security prices and be better informed investors. In order to quantitatively analyze Apple from a fundamental standpoint, I have relied heavily on return on assets. Return on assets is the net income of Apple divided by average total assets across an operating cycle. The benefit of relying on return on assets as an investment metric is


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Apple’s Stock Is Not Manipulated, But Things Are Changing

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By Paid2Trade:

Shares of Apple (AAPL) are trading down $5.21 this morning – reaching a low of $450.48 on no news. There are discussion on Twitter and other articles that the stock is being manipulated. “Manipulation,” however you chose to define it, has become the default answer to the question, why is my stock going down?

Remarkably, the market is never presumed to be right. When shares go up, stocks are “overbought,” and when shares go down they’re “oversold.” We can’t make up our minds. This speaks to the biases that we have and the pitfalls that exists with always “wanting to be right” – regardless of the facts.

Somehow, admitting that our companies have poorly executed never enters the rationale for why a stock goes down. “Manipulation” was also the prevailing reason given by frustrated Nokia (NOK) investors who are simply unable or unwilling to admit that


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The Apple You Don’t Know

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ByAdrian Wong:

Apple Inc. (AAPL), well known for its iPhone, iPad, iMac, and iPod products, has led a secret life. While the masses focus on the next iteration of the iPhone and iPad, the company holds some mysteries.

Does Apple really have $145 billion in cash?

On April 24, 2013, Bloomberg published an article titled, Apple’s $145 Billion in Cash Fails to Win AAA Debt Rating, where it references a $145 billion cash position. Two other articles – one from The Fiscal Times and the other from Techcrunch – coming around the same time, also reference this $145 billion in cash.

Surprise: According to Apple’s March 30, 2013 10-Q SEC filing, the company does not have $145 billion in cash. Instead, Apple’s "Cash, Cash Equivalents, and Marketable Securities" at fair value are worth $145 billion. The next question: what are these Marketable Securities? I created a chart below using


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The Bigger Picture Apple Investors Are Missing

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ByMarshall Hargrave:

With all the talk about Apple (AAPL)’s cash hoard and cheap valuation, investors continue to miss the bigger picture. Apple has a tremendous problem in Asia and isn’t doing anything about it. The problem Apple has is not with customers wanting the iPhone, but with the mobile carriers themselves – the gatekeepers between Apple and the consumer. According to Bloomberg, Apple could be missing out on as many as 2.8 billion customers!

Samsung Is Eating Apple’s Lunch

Since 2011, Apple has signed fewer than a dozen new deals with new carriers. Currently Apple has deals with about 240 carriers globally versus 800 carriers for Samsung (SSNLF.PK). This disparity represents billions of potential mobile phones users in China, Russia, India, and Japan. In Japan the nation’s largest mobile phone carrier NTT DoCoMo Inc. (DCM) doesn’t carry Apple products and neither does China Mobile Ltd. (CHL), which has over 700


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Now That Apple Has Bottomed, What Is It Worth?

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By Chad Brand:

Rational thought is beginning to take shape again as investors try to pin down a fair value for shares of Apple (AAPL) stock. A price below $400 just weeks ago made little sense for a company with $150 per share in net cash and $40 per share of net earnings (P/E ratio ~ 6x). With the stock back above $450 as the newly announced (and massive) share repurchase program commences, where is Apple likely to trade? This is not an easy question to answer, as the bears think it should trade at a multiple more in line with Microsoft (MSFT), while the bulls could argue that Google (GOOG) is a better comparable. Since Google trades at double the valuation of Microsoft (I am using trailing 12 months cash flow multiples in this article), fair value assessments can vary greatly based on your assumptions.

To put this debate


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