chinacat
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AAPL Long since 2006
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Post by chinacat on Mar 27, 2015 19:47:24 GMT -8
Is it the Dow Jinx? I thought that after last week's quadruple witching event that some semblance of sanity would take hold again. Of course, it is an opportunity for the savvy ones out there. I am looking forward to April. The 2FQ15 report should be an all-timer. There will be lots of "ink" about the WATCH (will there be selfies of those buying the Edition?). I am eagerly looking for a substantial increase to the dividend. Hope the traders out there bought the dip. The bar is open, let's drink to the future!
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Mav
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Post by Mav on Mar 27, 2015 23:08:32 GMT -8
Sleepy stock. "Should" be fine this year. Excited about Apple Watch even though I have no *present* intent to buy one.
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Post by Red Shirted Ensign on Mar 28, 2015 6:46:51 GMT -8
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 28, 2015 7:48:45 GMT -8
Call me a tad skeptical on the Watch Edition's popularity. Rolex can get away with selling a gold model for $10k and up, in part because there's no "baby" Rolex offering the same functionality for $349. Only Apple is marketing to extreme ends of the market for essentially the same product. Yeah, there will be lines, but the arbitrage option is probably overstated. The buyers of $10,000 Apple Watches will desire the security and the royalty treatment of an in-store experience. Some of that will be missing in the transaction with a homeless person. In the end, it's going to be a fringe market for the Watch Edition. I'm excited about the stainless model. Here's an optimistic review by a developer using WatchKit: www.macrumors.com/2015/03/27/apple-watch-developer-hands-on-experience/
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chinacat
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AAPL Long since 2006
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Post by chinacat on Mar 28, 2015 8:30:00 GMT -8
Call me a tad skeptical on the Watch Edition's popularity. Rolex can get away with selling a gold model for $10k and up, in part because there's no "baby" Rolex offering the same functionality for $349. Only Apple is marketing to extreme ends of the market for essentially the same product. Yeah, there will be lines, but the arbitrage option is probably overstated. The buyers of $10,000 Apple Watches will desire the security and the royalty treatment of an in-store experience. Some of that will be missing in the transaction with a homeless person. I share your caution on the Edition popularity, but as has been pointed out, the functionality alone is not what will draw those buyers. Also, while the mule may be a homeless person, there is no chance that he or she will be involved in the transaction with the final buyer. I will be interested to see how many, if any, of the recently announced shop-within-a-luxury-brand-stores there are in China. After all, there are two different gold versions to choose from, to go along with your new gold Macbook.
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Mav
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Post by Mav on Mar 28, 2015 9:19:19 GMT -8
A large fringe amongst luxury buyers in Asia? We'll never know how well Edition sells anyway. No matter. Watch in general should do juuust fine.
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Post by artman1033 on Mar 28, 2015 10:38:37 GMT -8
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JDSoCal
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Aspiring oligarch
Posts: 4,182
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Post by JDSoCal on Mar 28, 2015 11:36:16 GMT -8
Call me a tad skeptical on the Watch Edition's popularity. Rolex can get away with selling a gold model for $10k and up, in part because there's no "baby" Rolex offering the same functionality for $349. Only Apple is marketing to extreme ends of the market for essentially the same product. The "baby" Rolex Submariner is stainless steel and costs about $8000 USD. The 18K gold model with identical functionality is ~$27,000 (the white gold model is $34,000). This boils down to a single issue: You either believe wealthy people will pay more for 18K gold, or you do not. I believe that they will. And we will eventually find out if Edition sells well or not, whether or not the actual sales numbers are pulled out of "other." Tim will either brag about Edition sales, or he won't. Apple will either expand the high-end line, leave it the same, or dial it back (no pun intended), and you can extrapolate Edition's success from that information.
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Post by nagrani on Mar 28, 2015 12:25:01 GMT -8
Do you guys realize how unbelievably high the gross margins will be on the watch??? Im so glad I'm in the stock right now. I sold shares yesterday and purchased a bunch of jan 2016 110 calls.
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Post by nathanstevens on Mar 28, 2015 13:32:29 GMT -8
Call me a tad skeptical on the Watch Edition's popularity. Rolex can get away with selling a gold model for $10k and up, in part because there's no "baby" Rolex offering the same functionality for $349. Only Apple is marketing to extreme ends of the market for essentially the same product. The "baby" Rolex Submariner is stainless steel and costs about $8000 USD. The 18K gold model with identical functionality is ~$27,000 (the white gold model is $34,000). This boils down to a single issue: You either believe wealthy people will pay more for 18K gold, or you do not. I believe that they will. And we will eventually find out if Edition sells well or not, whether or not the actual sales numbers are pulled out of "other." Tim will either brag about Edition sales, or he won't. Apple will either expand the high-end line, leave it the same, or dial it back (no pun intended), and you can extrapolate Edition's success from that information. Apple is providing a hell of a lot of value at a very good price with their steel watch.
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Post by Red Shirted Ensign on Mar 28, 2015 15:20:01 GMT -8
The "baby" Rolex Submariner is stainless steel and costs about $8000 USD. The 18K gold model with identical functionality is ~$27,000 (the white gold model is $34,000). This boils down to a single issue: You either believe wealthy people will pay more for 18K gold, or you do not. I believe that they will. And we will eventually find out if Edition sells well or not, whether or not the actual sales numbers are pulled out of "other." Tim will either brag about Edition sales, or he won't. Apple will either expand the high-end line, leave it the same, or dial it back (no pun intended), and you can extrapolate Edition's success from that information. Apple is providing a hell of a lot of value at a very good price with their steel watch. I also think the steel Watch will make Goldilocks happy
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Post by rezonate on Mar 28, 2015 17:37:58 GMT -8
Apple TV articles keep popping into my feeds- more of them than any for Apple Watch. I'm interested to see how Apple solves the home kit proximity and location piece (so your device cloud "knows" you are in one room and not another.) Bluetooth LE is part of this but has blind spots, such as moving between floors in multi-story dwellings. Apple TV could be "one device to rule them all", and be the central hub. If that happens, it would be a third move away from the Mac as premier device, the first being content into iCloud, the second Apple Watch linked to iPhone. Geospatial proximity handled through iCloud would have too much latency, but a local device could marshal commands with acceptably low latency.
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Post by nagrani on Mar 28, 2015 17:50:26 GMT -8
Apple TV articles keep popping into my feeds- more of them than any for Apple Watch. I'm interested to see how Apple solves the home kit proximity and location piece (so your device cloud "knows" you are in one room and not another.) Bluetooth LE is part of this but has blind spots, such as moving between floors in multi-story dwellings. Apple TV could be "one device to rule them all", and be the central hub. If that happens, it would be a third move away from the Mac as premier device, the first being content into iCloud, the second Apple Watch linked to iPhone. Geospatial proximity handled through iCloud would have too much latency, but a local device could marshal commands with acceptably low latency. See watch helping here
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 28, 2015 18:01:58 GMT -8
Call me a tad skeptical on the Watch Edition's popularity. Rolex can get away with selling a gold model for $10k and up, in part because there's no "baby" Rolex offering the same functionality for $349. Only Apple is marketing to extreme ends of the market for essentially the same product. The "baby" Rolex Submariner is stainless steel and costs about $8000 USD. The 18K gold model with identical functionality is ~$27,000 (the white gold model is $34,000). This boils down to a single issue: You either believe wealthy people will pay more for 18K gold, or you do not. I believe that they will. And we will eventually find out if Edition sells well or not, whether or not the actual sales numbers are pulled out of "other." Tim will either brag about Edition sales, or he won't. Apple will either expand the high-end line, leave it the same, or dial it back (no pun intended), and you can extrapolate Edition's success from that information. I think you're making my point here, which is that Rolex has a strong entry price at $8,000 that confers exclusivity from Joe Blow. You can pay 3x that for a $27k Rolex to be among the chosen people. Apple's $10k Watch Edition cost 28 TIMES more than the $349 for the unwashed masses. Would Mercedes Benz, which sells $170k cars, be successful selling a $6k vehicle that is distinguished only by non-metallic paint? Nope. Even if AAPL rises to $150 next week, I don't think I'd buy a Watch Edition. Maybe I need to become more flashy like Red, with his Miami Vice threads and gold chains...
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JDSoCal
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Aspiring oligarch
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Post by JDSoCal on Mar 28, 2015 18:47:05 GMT -8
I think you're making my point here, which is that Rolex has a strong entry price at $8,000 that confers exclusivity from Joe Blow. You can pay 3x that for a $27k Rolex to be among the chosen people. Apple's $10k Watch Edition cost 28 TIMES more than the $349 for the unwashed masses. Would Mercedes Benz, which sells $170k cars, be successful selling a $6k vehicle that is distinguished only by non-metallic paint? Nope. Even if AAPL rises to $150 next week, I don't think I'd buy a Watch Edition. Maybe I need to become more flashy like Red, with his Miami Vice threads and gold chains... But you were talking about identical functionality in your previous post. A Rolex actually keeps worse time than a Timex. I think the luxury watch market proves that bling goes a long, long way. A lot of wealthy people like to literally wear their wealth on their sleeves. And I think just the value of "why, yes, I can afford to drop 5 figures on an Apple Watch, fuck you very much" will sell a lot of them. But I could be wrong. I don't want to be insulting, but your premise requires that you know more about Apple's market than Tim Cook does. You have to ask yourself if Apple under Tim is a spaghetti-throwing, hope-for-the-best, random dart throwing company, or is it an extremely focused company that knows its customers, and also knows that the risk of fuck ups is likely greater than the possible gains? Would Tim really launch this thing is he weren't really sure? I sure hope not. I do think Tim does a lot more market research than Steve's gut instinct approach to products, even if it is far more stealthy and product-driven than the average company. As someone mentioned, the spaghetti is probably thrown against the inside walls at One Infinite Loop. Apple personnel not on the design team are likely their market researchers, and they are asked to evaluate with total candor.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 28, 2015 19:06:28 GMT -8
But you were talking about identical functionality in your previous post. A Rolex actually keeps worse time than a Timex. I think the luxury watch market proves that bling goes a long, long way. A lot of wealthy people like to literally wear their wealth on their sleeves. And I think just the value of "why, yes, I can afford to drop 5 figures on an Apple Watch, fuck you very much" will sell a lot of them. But I could be wrong. I don't want to be insulting, but your premise requires that you know more about Apple's market than Tim Cook does. You have to ask yourself if Apple under Tim is a spaghetti-throwing, hope-for-the-best, random dart throwing company, or is it an extremely focused company that knows its customers, and also knows that the risk of fuck ups is likely greater than the possible gains? Would Tim really launch this thing is he weren't really sure? I sure hope not. I do think Tim does a lot more market research than Steve's gut instinct approach to products, even if it is far more stealthy and product-driven than the average company. As someone mentioned, the spaghetti is probably thrown against the inside walls at One Infinite Loop. Apple personnel not on the design team are likely their market researchers, and they are asked to evaluate with total candor. My analogy using cars requires the premise of identical functionality, superficially distinguished by paint (which can cost $5,500 if you order Porsche's "Paint to Sample") Your "In Apple I Trust" confidence is impressive, but you can't deny this is uncharted territory for Apple. Not even Apple can guarantee the results of Watch Edition. Fortunately, the success or failure of Watch won't depend on the # of Edition models sold. Ultimately, Tim Cook is relying on his fashionista V-Ps and I hope his trust is well placed. Remember, Apple doesn't do focus groups, so there's some leap of faith here. When Apple launched the first iPhone, it was interesting to read years later on how nervous Apple was anticipating the market's reception to it. Sheer speculation on my part, of course. I hope Apple sells a shit load of Watch Edition. I won't be one of them, and I like nice things.
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Post by chasmac on Mar 28, 2015 19:46:33 GMT -8
I love all the teeth gnashing over the watch when they spent 3B on freaking Beats with basically nothing to show for it over 6 months later. They've spent a helluva a lot less on the watch.
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Post by Red Shirted Ensign on Mar 28, 2015 20:29:48 GMT -8
The "baby" Rolex Submariner is stainless steel and costs about $8000 USD. The 18K gold model with identical functionality is ~$27,000 (the white gold model is $34,000). This boils down to a single issue: You either believe wealthy people will pay more for 18K gold, or you do not. I believe that they will. And we will eventually find out if Edition sells well or not, whether or not the actual sales numbers are pulled out of "other." Tim will either brag about Edition sales, or he won't. Apple will either expand the high-end line, leave it the same, or dial it back (no pun intended), and you can extrapolate Edition's success from that information. I think you're making my point here, which is that Rolex has a strong entry price at $8,000 that confers exclusivity from Joe Blow. You can pay 3x that for a $27k Rolex to be among the chosen people. Apple's $10k Watch Edition cost 28 TIMES more than the $349 for the unwashed masses. Would Mercedes Benz, which sells $170k cars, be successful selling a $6k vehicle that is distinguished only by non-metallic paint? Nope. Even if AAPL rises to $150 next week, I don't think I'd buy a Watch Edition. Maybe I need to become more flashy like Red, with his Miami Vice threads and gold chains... Eat your heart out Mercel. You never looked this good. Here, let me get a selfie.....
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Post by nagrani on Mar 28, 2015 21:16:16 GMT -8
Phoebe - what are the EW cats saying?
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Post by rezonate on Mar 29, 2015 4:05:51 GMT -8
I follow Mercel's logic about baby Rolex to $27k Rolex being 3x, and the $6,000 Mercedes with identical functionality argument. But Apple's high end watch must be priced at $10,000+ *because* the $27,000 Rolex exists. Products are not isolated things in a wider marketplace, evaluated discretely by discerning customers. Products coexist on the shelf. There must be some price parity to be considered a serious entry. Would Swatch do well adding a $10,000 gold version to their product mix? In my mind, the Apple brand (as luxury player) is somewhere between the Swatches and the Rolexes. Aunt Angela and Uncle Tim are pricing accordingly.
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Since84
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To infinity and beyond!
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Post by Since84 on Mar 29, 2015 4:13:40 GMT -8
Agree with Rezonate. It is also conceivable that there are one or more additional 'edition' watches in the wings at even higher price points. Test the market and adjust accordingly.
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Post by artman1033 on Mar 29, 2015 6:50:21 GMT -8
The world is changing. Watch the 2010 CES show here: twit.tv/show/twit-live-specials/6January 2010: FORD had sync.... a MrSofttie failure. NUANCE....hmm. SIRI e-readers, tablets.... lots of talk about the SLATE (iPad to be released in April 2010..) 3D TV?.... waiting for content early quadcopter/drone NEXUS one, PALM still exists. GREEN is big... PANASONIC buys carbon credits. boxee box... LG $2000 19 inch OLEG 720 DPI TV twit.tv/show/twit-live-specials/9
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Mav
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Post by Mav on Mar 29, 2015 8:29:36 GMT -8
I love all the teeth gnashing over the watch when they spent 3B on freaking Beats with basically nothing to show for it over 6 months later. They've spent a helluva a lot less on the watch. Lesser companies would have launched something to justify the purchase. Apple can take as long as it pleases. Beats as dumb/unrealized purchase not much of an angle these days. Apple's financials make it tough to meaningfully criticize. We don't know Watch R&D. And OpEx HAS been "high" lately.
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Post by Red Shirted Ensign on Mar 29, 2015 10:09:54 GMT -8
Travis look at the week ahead, not a call wall perhaps, but a broad berm.....
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Post by osx10 on Mar 29, 2015 13:28:37 GMT -8
Red, for those of us less experienced, can you explain how to read that graph & find the max pain point. TIA
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Post by Red Shirted Ensign on Mar 29, 2015 14:52:45 GMT -8
Red, for those of us less experienced, can you explain how to read that graph & find the max pain point. TIA Well, it's Monday so things will change a lot before Friday. However, there are a "fair" number of net calls at 125-126 but not a huge call wall at any one strike. I would read this very early range as mildly positive for the Bulls. If Apple can build some momentum early in the week, it can work its way over the hillock. Let's hope. But looking at this on Monday and forecasting what effect max pain will have by Friday is like forecasting rain today to arrive late next week....interesting, but don't plan the picnic yet.
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Post by Red Shirted Ensign on Mar 29, 2015 16:37:12 GMT -8
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Post by nagrani on Mar 29, 2015 17:26:00 GMT -8
Haven't had a down mon since beg of January
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