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Post by Luckychoices on May 25, 2015 17:47:09 GMT -8
Prior to the stock market crash of 2000-2002, my wife and I had begun to venture out from investing primarily in mutual funds and bought shares of a number of stocks that we had read were good investments. We already had a small number of shares in Apple Computer, so to that we added some of the "popular" stocks at the time: Sun Microsystems, Oracle, Home Depot, Cisco, JDSU, Nokia and a couple of others. When the crash came, we lost about $100,000 and all of our stocks had charts that looked something like this: When we assessed the financial damage, I suggested we sell what remained of all the other stocks and put the money into the stock of the one company whose products we actually used and liked, Apple Computer. This began our practice of investing our money only in AAPL. Despite reading and hearing the caution against “putting all your eggs in one basket”, that’s exactly what we did. Any extra money in the credit union, checking account or savings account? Buy AAPL. Christmas, birthday or anniversary money? Buy AAPL. When we were able to put 70% of each of our 401Ks into a self-managed account (we both worked at the same company) we each used the total self-managed account to buy AAPL. When our allowed yearly contributions for our IRAs was filled (in AAPL, of course), the money and AAPL stock went into a trust account. I retired in 2008 and my wife followed in 2011. The exact number of shares that we own has varied over the last several years but the number shown on the chart is accurate as of 05/19/15. Since Apple's restart of paying dividends in August, 2012, some shares get added every quarter because of auto-reinvest of dividends in our IRAs. Some shares have gotten sold over the last year to fund a remodel. As you can see from the chart, most years for our investment were good, a couple not so good. As of today, 38% of our shares are in trust accounts, 62% are in IRA accounts. Last Tuesday, 05/19/15, was the 7th anniversary of my retirement in 2008 so I decided to post this chart, along with the numbers this time, to give encouragement to other AAPL Longs on the forum that are investing in AAPL to help save for their retirement. In many cases, those folks may be 20 to 30 years younger than I was when we started this practice back in 2000-2001 so there's plenty of time for AAPL to add significantly to their retirement savings. Please understand, I’m not advising anyone to do what we did, I’m just saying that sometimes things work out better than one could have possibly hoped. Cheers to the AAPL Longs!!
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Post by rickag on May 26, 2015 5:05:39 GMT -8
Congratulations.
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Post by Luckychoices on May 26, 2015 19:11:45 GMT -8
Thanks, rickag. I wish I could credit my wonderful financial acumen instead of just buying AAPL and holding it. Pretty conservative investing...not there's anything wrong with that.
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Post by mace on May 27, 2015 9:10:44 GMT -8
A loss of over $1 mil in 2009, and over $3 mil in 2012 have not shaken your conviction. Keep it UP !
Look like you move from $200k in 2000 to $23 mil now. Incredible achievement...
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Post by Luckychoices on May 27, 2015 13:13:14 GMT -8
A loss of over $1 mil in 2009, and over $3 mil in 2012 have not shaken your conviction. Keep it UP ! Look like you move from $200k in 2000 to $23 mil now. Incredible achievement... Thanks, mace. My only real contribution was choosing the right basket. And, as you well know, it's not a loss if you don't sell. Besides, Apple's volatility over the years has made me a little jaded (perhaps numb would be a better word). We've had several days where our shares have been up over $500K in one day and several where they dropped over $500K in one day. All those movements were blips and not representative of AAPL's real, continuing trajectory. This is one of my charts I've payed attention to over the last couple of years. As long as this chart looks good, "buy and hold" is going to continue to work well for us and all the AAPL longs. Thanks again for the nice comment!
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Post by mace on May 27, 2015 13:18:27 GMT -8
Since 2003, AAPL has not broken below the multi-year up trend .
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Post by Luckychoices on Aug 30, 2015 12:41:04 GMT -8
The chart I included in my initial post in this thread gave no indication of the value we’ve received from dividends since Apple started paying them again in August of 2012. I know, for tax reasons, some members of the board would rather Apple didn’t pay dividends at all but instead used that money in some other way to return value to it’s shareholders. As for my wife and I, we couldn’t be happier with the Apple dividends, unless of course, they were even higher. For the last two years, because of RMD (Required Minimum Distributions) I’ve had to move a total slightly over $373,000 from my two IRA accounts ($156K in 2014 and 217K in 2015). As you might imagine, since the money must be declared as income, this has meant a big hit to our taxes. Fortunately, the quarterly dividends from our trust accounts compensates (with a few thousand left over) and allows us to pay our quarterly estimated taxes with little effort. If Apple didn’t pay dividends, we’d have to sell stock every quarter, probably from our trust accounts, just to pay the increased taxes resulting from my RMD withdrawals. Now granted, we also have to pay taxes on our trust dividends but we’re still better off with dividends than without dividends. Also, the IRA dividends are auto-reinvested in additional shares of Apple, which in my wife’s case, can continue to increase her total IRA AAPL shares until she hits the RMD age (70.5) in about 11 years. I’ve received 3634 “free” AAPL shares in the 3 years since August 2012 while my wife has added a total of 3648 among her three IRAs. I decided to post the spreadsheet I've been keeping since the dividends started because I was amazed to see that we've received a total of over $1M in dividends in only 3 short years, August 2012 to August 2015. For us and other folks who are long term investors of Apple stock, what’s not to like about AAPL dividends? Cheers to the AAPL Longs!!
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Post by Luckychoices on Sept 28, 2015 15:04:01 GMT -8
Back in 2006 or 2007, when I first noticed that the value of our combined Apple stock had exceeded a million dollars, I decided to put together a chart which would mark the value's (hopefully) growth from that point. After some experimenting with how and what to graph, I decided to show how much the share price had to increase to add each additional million and I settled upon the chart shown below. The blue line just follows the share price as it reaches each additional million level and the green line shows the decreasing percentage the stock must increase from that share price to reach the next million. Since 1 million divided by the approximate number of shares we had then was approximately 41, each increase of $41+ would take us up an additional million in value. So, to go from about 1 million at $41/share, the stock price had to increase by 100%, to $81/share to go to 2 million in value. To reach 6 million from 5 million, the stock price of $203 had to increase by 20% (~$41) to reach $243 (the price where the total value would be 6 million). And so on. It was nice, and reassuring, to see in graphical terms the mathematical truth that the higher the stock price got, the less of a percentage increase was needed to reach the next level’s stock price. I decided to include the dates where this step increase first happened and to indicate how many days had elapsed since the previous milestone was reached. This gave me some indication of how quickly or how slowly, the stock value was increasing over a certain period. If the stock price dropped after reaching a certain level, I left the vertical line in place but changed the color from black to red (as in the chart below) to indicate the stock price had retreated from that level. If and when the stock price eventually recovered, the line for that level would change again from red back to black to indicate that recovery. The dip in the green line reflects the change in the number of shares we owned and the 7 for 1 split. As you can see from the chart, 2008 and 2013 posted the longest interval between levels with 744 days and 770 days respectively, whereas 2014 had the shortest interval by far at 4 days, between 11/20/14 and 11/24/14. As shown in the “Levels Reached/Year” insert, the year 2012 had the most levels reached in a year with 8. Of course, that great year was followed by the terrible year for AAPL of 2013 when the stock dropped a ridiculous amount (before recovering in 2014) during the longest interval on the chart of 770 days. As we’ve all been trapped in yet another period where the Apple stock price is not keeping up with the strong fundamentals of the company, I started looking more closely at the elapsed days since the last level (Level 23 on 02/20/15) was reached on the above chart. I listed all the levels on the above chart along with date they were first reached and the calculated consecutive days between levels for each before sorting by the intervals between levels and plotting the intervals Vs the date each level was reached. The data (shown below on the left) and the chart indicates that the period since 02/20/15 is possibly the fourth longest period for AAPL to be trapped in the doldrums since I’ve been plotting the data on the chart above. Within 10 days, by 10/06/15, this period will be the third longest period, surpassed only by the period between 09/14/12 to 10/24/14 (770 days) and the period between 10/08/07 and 10/21/09 (744 days). I’m not, by any means, posting this second chart to discourage AAPL Longs but rather to help validate the feeling on the board that this down and sideways movement of AAPL has indeed gone on a long, long time. On the positive side (and to remain long in AAPL, you need a positive side), I agree with many on the board who are convinced that, despite the constant FUD published by the anti-Apple folks, Apple, the company, has never been stronger than it is today. And it’s still my opinion that sooner or later, hopefully sooner, the stock price will reflect the reality and strength of the company. Cheers, and hang in there, to the AAPL Longs!
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Post by Volvocoupe on Sept 28, 2015 21:51:36 GMT -8
Very well done LuckyC. Following in your footsteps at this point but started with borrowed money in 2008. Very,very happy for you and your wife. Not sure my wife and I will ever get to your current value but we have a chance. Keep fighting the good fight!!!
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Post by Luckychoices on Sept 29, 2015 6:16:42 GMT -8
Very well done LuckyC. Following in your footsteps at this point but started with borrowed money in 2008. Very,very happy for you and your wife. Not sure my wife and I will ever get to your current value but we have a chance. Keep fighting the good fight!!! Thank you, Volvocoupe! I appreciate your nice comment and have no doubt you and your wife will continue to do well and have an excellent chance of getting to the level you're shooting for. I believe all the APPL Longs will be glad they held through discouraging periods like this. It's not the first time we've experienced this and there's no reason to think it will be the last. It's a difficult time but it passes. I'm probably the oldest member of the board at 72, soon to be 73 and so many other members are very much younger than I was (61 or 62) when we started to buy AAPL to the exclusion of any other investment and became very diligent about turning every possible source of cash into Apple stock. If any appreciable amount of "extra" money accumulated in our bank or credit union accounts, we bought AAPL with it. Christmas, birthday or anniversary money? Bought AAPL. Car getting old? Repaired and maintained it instead of replacing it and bought AAPL. In fact we drove our, bought-new, 1996 Infinity i30 for 16 years and 206,000 miles before buying a new car at the end of 2012. We took vacations many years but skipped some years as well. Anyway, you take my point. We were focused and hoped to end up with a million or two worth of AAPL stock to occasionally supplement our pensions and my Social Security after retirement. Apple restarting their dividends wasn't even a consideration during those years, but like the saying goes, "I'd rather be lucky than good". We were lucky but we also were committed to the idea that AAPL would be an ongoing, winning investment for us. I'm sorry to drone on and repeat what I've already said in previous posts but I'm excited when I hear folks like you and your wife are taking a similar path because it's worked out so well for us. I think there are a considerable number of board members who are unshaken in their determination to ignore the never ending FUD and continue to hold their investment in AAPL because of their confidence that Apple remains a company that deserves that investment. Good luck to you and to all of the AAPL Longs!!
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Post by Volvocoupe on Sept 29, 2015 9:41:46 GMT -8
Very well done LuckyC. Following in your footsteps at this point but started with borrowed money in 2008. Very,very happy for you and your wife. Not sure my wife and I will ever get to your current value but we have a chance. Keep fighting the good fight!!! Thank you, Volvocoupe! I appreciate your nice comment and have no doubt you and your wife will continue to do well and have an excellent chance of getting to the level you're shooting for. I believe all the APPL Longs will be glad they held through discouraging periods like this. It's not the first time we've experienced this and there's no reason to think it will be the last. It's a difficult time but it passes. I'm probably the oldest member of the board at 72, soon to be 73 and so many other members are very much younger than I was (61 or 62) when we started to buy AAPL to the exclusion of any other investment and became very diligent about turning every possible source of cash into Apple stock. If any appreciable amount of "extra" money accumulated in our bank or credit union accounts, we bought AAPL with it. Christmas, birthday or anniversary money? Bought AAPL. Car getting old? Repaired and maintained it instead of replacing it and bought AAPL. In fact we drove our, bought-new, 1996 Infinity i30 for 16 years and 206,000 miles before buying a new car at the end of 2012. We took vacations many years but skipped some years as well. Anyway, you take my point. We were focused and hoped to end up with a million or two worth of AAPL stock to occasionally supplement our pensions and my Social Security after retirement. Apple restarting their dividends wasn't even a consideration during those years, but like the saying goes, "I'd rather be lucky than good". We were lucky but we also were committed to the idea that AAPL would be an ongoing, winning investment for us. I'm sorry to drone on and repeat what I've already said in previous posts but I'm excited when I hear folks like you and your wife are taking a similar path because it's worked out so well for us. I think there are a considerable number of board members who are unshaken in their determination to ignore the never ending FUD and continue to hold their investment in AAPL because of their confidence that Apple remains a company that deserves that investment. Good luck to you and to all of the AAPL Longs!! No, thank you!
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Post by Luckychoices on Jun 8, 2016 12:26:56 GMT -8
Since the 8th anniversary of my retirement was Thursday, 05/19/16, almost 1 year exactly since Apple’s ATH of $132.54 on 05/22/15, I decided to post an update after the most recent low of $90.34 on 05/12/16. 1. Apple Stock Price Vs Apple Stock Value I started the chart below shortly after I retired in 2008 to give myself something to help me visualize exactly what had happened, and was happening to Apple's stock price on a year-to-year basis. When I first posted this thread last year, AAPL had been at 130.07 on my 7th anniversary date (05/19/15), but after a dismal year for Apple stock, AAPL was down to 94.20 on my 8th year anniversary, just one year later. So how does having all my eggs in one basket look to me now? The answer is probably not surprising to long time members of the board because I’m still delighted and thankful we went long on AAPL back around 2000 and stayed long AAPL over the years, during the stock’s many peaks and valleys. I understand that past performance is no guarantee of future performance but I remain optimistic about Apple’s future. Obviously, if I were looking for short term gains, or if we had bought our shares in May of 2015, I would feel very differently. As of 05/19/16, with AAPL at $94.20/share, the value of our AAPL shares combined, trust and IRA accounts, was down $6,164,948 from 05/19/15. For someone who never expected the value of our Apple shares would even approach the amount of the DECLINE in value of our holdings, it looks like a ridiculous amount. But look at the next section to understand why I’m not in a panic. 2. AAPL Pullback Data This is a table showing the three major AAPL pullbacks since 2006. You’ll notice that the 2007-2009 pullback was much more severe than what we’re currently experiencing, as the stock dropped by a higher percentage and lasted about 300 days longer than it has done at this point. During that pullback the stock dropped for 390 days before it reached the low point. Currently, the days between high and low for this pullback is 382 days, however we don’t know for sure that the stock is done dropping. The pullback in 2012-2013 was also worse than what we’ve experienced to date. I’m not calling a bottom, even now, but I am saying that, to date, this current pullback is much less severe than the previous two and I remain convinced that better days are ahead for the stock. 3. Apple Dividends AAPL has had a very bad year but I do take some comfort and satisfaction in that the auto-reinvested AAPL dividends in our IRAs purchased many more shares of AAPL than they did in the same period of 2015, as a result of the lower price/share as shown in the chart directly below this text. Presently, we’ve received $1,320,696.82 in dividends from Apple since August, 2012 and the IRA portion of those dividends have purchased 9097.6 shares of Apple. As I’ve previously stated, when I retired in 2008 and my wife retired in 2011, we had no indication that Apple was doing to restart the dividend program so, for us, Apple dividends are a completely unexpected and unplanned benefit of being an Apple Long because we expected at some point, to be forced to start selling off shares of AAPL to provide us with money to supplement our retirement. Even though the VALUE of our 100% investment in AAPL has decreased tremendously over the last 9 months, our 2015 AAPL dividends surpassed the sum of our Lockheed Martin pensions plus my Social Security by $23,883; additionally, the 2015 dividends from the AAPL stock in our IRAs added an additional 1850 shares of AAPL to our IRA accounts due to auto-reinvest. a. After 2 quarters in 2016, our dividends have bought us more, and less expensive shares than could be explained by a different dividend for 02/12/15 and 05/12/16. b. Total IRA Shares shares purchased in 2015 with auto-reinvest=1849.9354 @ 120.45 average price Picked up an average of 462.5 shares per quarter c. Total IRA shares purchased to date in 2016 with auto-reinvest=1310.7675 @ 92.11 average price. Picked up, so far, an average of 655.4 shares per quarter. d. If the stock stayed low for the rest of 2016 ($90-$100) we would pick up at least an additional 1274 shares over the next two quarters and end the year with as many as 2575 AAPL total new IRA shares for the year because of 2016 auto-reinvest, 39% more than in 2015. However, if AAPL ends up well over $150 by the end of 2016, and therefore our IRA dividends purchase fewer shares, I’ll come to grips with my disappointment. 4. Main Trust Account I’ve wondered about our buying frequency in the early years of our investing in AAPL so I searched for the information at the Charles Schwab site and found it was nicely laid out for all accounts. Since we're limited to 3 attachments, I'll add the Lot Detail of our longest held, and by far the largest, of our several trust accounts into a comment. As can be seen at the bottom of the screen shot, our first major purchase of Apple stock was made on 12/22/00, when I was 57 years old and 9 years from retirement. As I detailed in my first post in this thread, this took place just after the Tech Crash where we lost about $100,000 when our various investments dropped drastically in value, almost overnight, and we made the decision to sell all the stocks we’d owned and put the remaining money into the one stock we decided to keep, which of course was Apple. I continue to point out my age when we started seriously going long with AAPL because I know most of the members of this board are younger, some much younger, that I was at that time and I always wonder at the urge of younger people to buy and sell in the market rather than take a long position in a stock, or several stocks, in which they have some interest and confidence. Quick aside: I have two brothers, one four years older than me and one four years younger than me. When, as the executor of my folks trust, I distributed $106,000 to each of my brothers as part of the trust distribution my older brother took my advice to buy AAPL with his portion but my younger brother rejected my advice many, many times. His reason was always the same: “I should have bought Apple when it was $7/share”. Well, no sh#t. Meanwhile, my older brother, a freelance photographer who has never had much money and lived check to check, bought AAPL with his portion; when AAPL was near it’s ATH, his account was worth almost 3/4 of a million. For a person with his financial history, it was, and still is, unbelievable to him and I guess you could say he also has all his eggs in one basket. Anyway, cheers to the AAPL Longs and I hope we escape the doldrums real soon now and blast past the ATH of last year.
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Post by Luckychoices on Jun 8, 2016 12:29:15 GMT -8
This is the Lot Detail screenshot that I was unable to include in my previous post due to the 3 attachment limit.
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Post by Luckychoices on Dec 12, 2016 13:26:03 GMT -8
I'm updating the AAPL Pullback Data table that I posted back in May of this year. We've moved up a little over $18 since then but not nearly as much as I guessed/hoped that we would. I told a friend of mine in May that I thought AAPL would finish the year at about $140/share. My inability to anticipate what the stock will do, short or medium term, is exactly why i'm an AAPL Long. You'll note, from referencing the most recent pullback chart, that even though it seems we've been far below the ATH forever, it's still not as long as we were below the ATH's in 2007-2009 and 2012-2013. We are, however, within 100 days of the total 2007-2009 pullback, which was 663 days. Will we gain about $20/share within the next 100 days? As I've demonstrated with my $140-by-the-end-of-2016 estimate, I have no idea. Pullback data from 12/09/16 Pullback data from 05/19/16
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Post by Luckychoices on Jan 19, 2017 14:35:11 GMT -8
================= Note: * Why did I even start this thread in the first place? Most of our investing in Apple stock took place prior to my wife’s retirement in 2011. Since I’m a compulsive and unrepentant table/chart maker, I’d been making them with our AAPL investment data for many years and I basically got tired of hearing how AAPL was no longer a good stock to own, when my tables and charts showed something much different. As we are anonymous on this board, I decided to post some of the tables/charts which showed why we still considered AAPL a great investment to, hopefully, encourage other investors who were long the stock or were considering going long with AAPL stock. I plan to continue to provide periodic updates for the same reason_not just when things are going great with AAPL but also when the stock is or has been in the doldrums. ================= I started this thread almost two years ago, back in May of 2015, when it looked like the price of AAPL was just going to continue it’s upward travel. Now that 2016 has dissuaded us of that idea, I decided to continue to provide updates because my original intention was to highlight a buy-and-hold AAPL investment strategy and with that strategy, bad sometimes comes right along with the good. AAPL continues to be our only investment, so naturally, when the price of AAPL drops, the total value of our investment drops right along with it. 1. Summary of the last two years, 2015 and 2016 Although the stock price of AAPL has obviously varied wildly over the last two years, we received $361,963.68 in 2015 AAPL dividends and $400,733.99 in 2016 AAPL dividends for a total of $762,697.67 for those two years. About 61% of our AAPL stock is in our IRA accounts and 39% is in our trust accounts. Our IRA AAPL dividends are set to auto-reinvest and bought a total of 4,333.05 shares over those two years at stock prices that ranged from $91.10 to $128.73, for an overall cost basis of $108.56/share. Those 4,333 shares are up $45,210.02 or 9.6% as of 01/13/17. 2. This is my updated chart showing AAPL by Year Start and Year End back to 2002. When I first posted this chart on this thread, it only went back to 2006 but I decided it made sense to include a few more years. While AAPL is unlikely to see any more triple digit yearly increases, I do expect and hope to see double digit ones. 3. This chart shows very clearly why an AAPL Long, especially one invested solely in AAPL, may feel a twinge of anxiety when the stock price drops like it did last year. Yet even though the chart shows that our stock value was down $6,290,140 on 05/19/16, the 8th anniversary of my retirement date, I can’t say it was all that memorable. Yes, AAPL was down considerably and the value of our stock was appreciably lower but I must admit to have gotten somewhat used to this wild fluctuation in stock price, especially when it seems to happen on a regular basis for, IMO, little or insufficient reason. Plus, the value of our AAPL stock was still 3.7X what it was when I retired in 2008; and since the only AAPL stock we sell is what I’m forced to sell annually from my IRAs due to the RMD (Required Minimum Distribution), it’s not like I would ever kick myself for not selling when the stock price was higher. 4. RMD (Required Minimum Distribution) Definition: One's required minimum distribution is the minimum amount you must withdraw from your account each year based on your life expectancy at that age. You generally have to start taking withdrawals from your IRA, SEP IRA, SIMPLE IRA, or retirement plan account when you reach age 70½. My RMD for the last three years is as shown below: 2015 $217,007.12 - Complete 2016 $210,331.88 - Complete 2017 $236,223.55 - Pending To satisfy one’s RMD, even though the dollar value must be withdrawn from the account, one can move the monetary value in stock from an IRA to a trust account and just pay taxes on the value of the stock moved rather than selling the stock outright and then moving the money. This is what I do, when possible, so I can retain the AAPL stock in a trust account. The chart below shows how my IRA shares and the IRA shares of my spouse have changed over the last 4 years since Apple reinstituted the dividend program. After an increase in my total IRA shares at the end of 2012, the number of my total IRA shares have obviously continued to drop since my RMD kicked in during 2013. Since we both have our AAPL dividends auto-reinvested, my wife’s total shares have continued to climb every year while mine have continued to drop, although at a lower rate than if Apple wasn’t paying dividends. Since my wife is 61 this month, her IRAs will continue to gain shares for another 9.5 years before she is subject to the RMD at 701/2. 5. Dividends - I know that AAPL dividends are not appreciated by all AAPL investors. For my wife and myself, however, they were and are, an unexpected and welcome addition to our planned retirement. We both expected to begin to sell our AAPL stock to supplement our retirement income, but thanks to Apple restarting the dividend program in August of 2012, (our current yearly AAPL dividends) > 3.96X(my pension after 23 years+wife's pension after 29 years+my Social Security). In the 4+ years that Apple has been paying dividends, our AAPL dividends have amounted to a total of $1,525,849.90. Since our board has, unfortunately (and hopefully temporarily), become a shell of it’s former self with regards to daily posting, I’ve spent more and more time on the Seeking Alpha site where there are a number of AAPL Longs that comment on the Apple-related articles as well as a number of anti-Apple folks who have nothing good to say about Apple or it’s future. In fact, in the general course of lambasting Apple, the naysayers often direct equal derision at AAPL Longs for holding on to the stock now that “Apple is in decline”, since, in their opinion, AAPL has been “dead money” for the last two years. I don’t look at the decreased value of our stock as a personal financial “loss”, even though the opinion of many of the anti-Apple folks on SA is that we’ve “lost” money over the last two years. Rather I view it as more similar to a valuable property or artifact that was purchased for much less money a number of years ago, but is now viewed as being worth less than it was in 2015 at it’s ATH. It’s the same “property". Nothing much has changed, IMO, except it's being "appraised" at a lower value than it was in 2015. Plus...AAPL dividends. In my opinion, the future of Apple/AAPL, while not always crystal clear, is still bright and I’ve proved to myself, conclusively, over the years that the very best way for my wife and I to benefit is to stay long the stock. I don't believe I'm smart enough or intuitive enough to pop in and out of the stock or to trade options successfully, so I’ll continue to use the more boring, but less risky, method of just staying fully invested in this company for the foreseeable future. Cheers to the AAPL Longs!!
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Post by Luckychoices on Aug 13, 2017 10:10:13 GMT -8
Two years ago, on 05/25/15, I started this thread to document the result of my wife and I investing 100% of our retirement savings and IRA’s into AAPL. I stated at the time that my intention was "to give encouragement to other AAPL Longs on the forum that are investing in AAPL to help save for their retirement”. I wasn’t advocating that *anyone* should do the same as we did but I recognized that most of the members of the board are much, much younger than I am now, and, in many cases, significantly younger that I was(57) when we went all in on AAPL. The original Apple-related chart I enclosed was a graph showing the yearly changes in our investment value since my retirement in 2008. This year on 05/19/17, my 9th year of retirement, my wife and I were in Africa for most of May and the first few days of June so I couldn’t easily update the chart and post it in a timely manner. The chart I’m posting today clearly illustrates the roller coaster peaks and valleys the AAPL Longs experience with AAPL as it rises and falls based on investor perceptions, which are perhaps *occasionally* well-founded but mostly not, IMO. I want to also mention that some folks on Seeking Alpha, once they realize my wife and I are invested *only* in AAPL, have sometimes been less than diplomatic when telling me their thoughts on that concept. I want to thank the members of this board for *not* expressing those thoughts, even if they may have felt them. I realize that being *diversified* in one’s investment portfolio is a cornerstone of investment principle and typically folks who invest in the market may use 3-5% as the maximum percentage to allocate to one stock. One commenter on SA insisted on using the word “lunacy” when referring to our concentration of investment in AAPL and that seemed to me to be just a little, maybe more than a little, harsh. I was surprised to find myself so sensitive to anonymous insults. I've never, in my personal life or on this board, suggested anything other than my wife and I were fortunate, lucky, that our investing in AAPL turned out so well for us. We didn’t try to time the market. Well, other than that brief early period where I thought it would be clever to sell some shares from my IRA when the AAPL share price was dropping and then buy those shares back at a lower price before the share price recovered. My *clever* plan worked, too. Twice in a row. The third time…not so much. Anyway, we also never tried to “lock in our profits” which meant we watched the share price drop pretty dramatically during 3 major pullbacks of AAPL share price over the last 10 years or so. My point, if I have one, is that we didn’t do much of *anything* right based on the general ideas of investing in the stock market and yet, as you can see from the chart, the value of our investment has continued to grow thanks to the slow but steady growth of Apple/AAPL. I can look back and see other tech stocks that have had much better and more consistent growth over the last 5-10 years but that’s obviously not the way investment works. Anyone can look back and see where they *could/should* have invested for maximum growth. The point is, where are you most comfortable investing your money for the future and for us, that’s Apple. Because of RMD (Required Minimum Distribution), I’ve had to sell ~$200,000 in AAPL shares from my IRA’s each year for the last 3 years and yet, because my wife and I both reinvest the AAPL quarterly dividends in our IRAs, our total number of shares continues to increase and, as can be seen from the chart, in the nine years since I retired and despite some major pullbacks in share price , the total *value* of our shares has increased at an *average* of about $2,575,000/year. Since our original goal, hope mostly, back in the 2000-2003 time frame was to *eventually* have our AAPL shares worth 2 million dollars, what has actually occurred would not even have been in our wildest fantasy. In any event, this board is the second thing I look at in the morning, the first being AAPL’s premarket price on Yahoo. I appreciate Since84’s consistent kickoff of the thread each day and everyone’s contribution to the discussions. I miss hearing from some of the folks who have moved on and no longer post but I’m pleased when new members or lurkers show up to comment or leave a link. Even though I had to greatly reduce the size of this image to squeeze in under 1 MB, I'm adding it my post because the image makes me smile. This is one of two lion cubs that were playing and wrestling near our vehicle and it was beating a hasty retreat after receiving a growling rebuff from the male of the pride when it decided to include him in the activity. I wish all the members well in their investments, whether it's AAPL or other stocks and whether it's long, options, day trading or a combination. But I must especially say, “Cheers to the AAPL Longs!!"
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Since84
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To infinity and beyond!
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Post by Since84 on Aug 13, 2017 10:59:12 GMT -8
FWIW, I have also been 100% in Apple for many years. I got there by selling my losers and investing the money in the best alternative (Apple), until I slowly had nothing but Apple. Apple appreciation has already paid for 3 children to go to college with more than enough leftover to get started in life.
Fidelity periodically reminds me my position is 'inadvisable'. I respond by asking what they would have recommended 5 years ago and what the return would have been. There is not a good response.
I have not started withdrawals from my IRA, but will shortly. It will generate far more income than is necessary. Indeed, I'll likely withdraw more than the required minimums for estate purposes. In fact, I am about to move from New Jersey to New Hampshire. The NJ state income tax rate times my IRA balance (unfortunately in a 'regular' IRA) is more than the cost of the house I am purchasing in New Hampshire. Tax incentives.
Luckychoices, I am curious why you reinvest the dividends and sell stock in your IRA?
Cheers to the longs.
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Post by Luckychoices on Aug 13, 2017 12:11:02 GMT -8
FWIW, I have also been 100% in Apple for many years. I got there by selling my losers and investing the money in the best alternative (Apple), until I slowly had nothing but Apple. Apple appreciation has already paid for 3 children to go to college with more than enough leftover to get started in life. I love it!! You got there over time and we got there a little more quickly because of the Tech Crash but I'm happy to hear that you're *all AAPL* and thriving. Others may make much more investing in different stocks and using different methods of investing but I can't image an easier, less risky way to invest. Fidelity periodically reminds me my position is 'inadvisable'. I respond by asking what they would have recommended 5 years ago and what the return would have been. There is not a good response. I appreciate you mentioning this because it's almost identical to what I've gotten from Charles Schwab. When AAPL pulled back over 60% during the economic crash during 2007-2009, I told my Charles Schwab Financial Advisor that I believed AAPL would recover better and faster than anything CS might recommend. I have not started withdrawals from my IRA, but will shortly. It will generate far more income than is necessary. Indeed, I'll likely withdraw more than the required minimums for estate purposes. In fact, I am about to move from New Jersey to New Hampshire. The NJ state income tax rate times my IRA balance (unfortunately in a 'regular' IRA) is more than the cost of the house I am purchasing in New Hampshire. Tax incentives. So are you starting IRA withdrawals because of RMD or for some other reason? And, please educate me, why are you going to withdraw *more* than the minimum for estate purposes? Luckychoices, I am curious why you reinvest the dividends and sell stock in your IRA? Cheers to the longs. We currently have about 60% of our AAPL in our IRA accounts. As I wrote previously, because of Required Minimum Distribution, I had to start selling AAPL stock from my IRAs the tax year in which I reached 70.5 years of age. So basically, I sell stock in my IRAs because I'm required to do so and for no other reason. The 40% of AAPL in our trust accounts, of course, is taxable and we use those quarterly dividends to help pay estimated taxes, etc. Since I'm *required* to sell a portion of AAPL stock every year, I sell throughout the year whenever it's needed for travel, etc. If I wasn't subject to RMD, we probably would withdraw much or all of our IRA AAPL dividends to use in place of the money provided by RMD withdrawals. But since the money is not needed, because of RMD withdrawals, I can't think of a better way to reinvest the dividends. Thanks so much for sharing your incredibly nice investment circumstances!! It put a smile on my face when I read your post.
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coma
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Post by coma on Aug 13, 2017 12:56:23 GMT -8
FWIW, I have also been 100% in Apple for many years. I got there by selling my losers and investing the money in the best alternative (Apple), until I slowly had nothing but Apple. That sounds like my experience, I didn't get seriously invested in Apple until after the release of OS X in 2001. I have also received the occasional "beware" from financial advisors for going all in on Apple, but I have been rewarded immensely . . . I have also used my MRD in the past to purchase several rental properties and two condominium units in the same building for my future retirement when cutting the grass becomes a chore.
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Post by rickag on Aug 13, 2017 15:49:15 GMT -8
In fact, I am about to move from New Jersey to New Hampshire. Cheers to the longs. Small world, I was born in Manchester, NH. I don't remember much of NH as my father got transfererd to the conflict in Korea 2 weeks after I was born. My mother, sister & I moved to Buffalo until dad returned.
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Post by galleybob on Aug 13, 2017 16:32:20 GMT -8
Lucky, I enjoy reading your comments on Seeking Alpha. My investment philosophy is the same. I bought in 2000, after poor earnings because of the Cube. Have always taken the long view, have never sold a share. I'm not going to lie and say that I have never been nervous during major selloffs, I have but I have held on. At this point, with a cost basis around $1.50 , why sell? My attitude now is if there is a major crash, it just gives Apple an opportunity to buy a lot of shares at a much lower price. I tell my family if there is no plan to sell, share price really doesn't matter now. Eventually, the share price will catch up, with higher, sustainable dividends with more shares retired. I was able to retire at 57, I am almost 65 now. I have never been tempted to get rich quick with options, leaps, etc. For me, the best plan was to get rich slowly which I encourage my young relatives to do. I never did understand rebalancing, selling winners. What's the chance of catching lightning twice? I feel the same as you, very lucky, not smart, though I did make my purchase based on years of following Apple. Back then I thought Apple would be a great investment based on the new operating system. When I read that it was portable, I just felt that great things would be possible. There were a few stagnant years, but once iTunes was ported to Windows, the flood gates opened. I have been on this board since 2000, though I almost never post, I read it every day.
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Post by Luckychoices on Aug 13, 2017 20:35:02 GMT -8
Lucky, I enjoy reading your comments on Seeking Alpha. Zounds! How did you know it was me? Was it the photo that gave me away? My investment philosophy is the same. I bought in 2000, after poor earnings because of the Cube. Have always taken the long view, have never sold a share. I'm not going to lie and say that I have never been nervous during major selloffs, I have but I have held on. At this point, with a cost basis around $1.50 , why sell? My attitude now is if there is a major crash, it just gives Apple an opportunity to buy a lot of shares at a much lower price. A $1.50 cost basis for your AAPL shares is amazing. Ours is *much* higher, probably closer to $25-$30. It's difficult for me to know because my wife and I both rolled the AAPL in our work 401K's into IRAs when we retired and I don't have records of the 401K purchases. Our oldest trust shares are 3,300 shares purchased on 12/22/00 for $1.07 but all of our subsequent shares were purchased at a substantially higher price. I tell my family if there is no plan to sell, share price really doesn't matter now. Eventually, the share price will catch up, with higher, sustainable dividends with more shares retired. That phrase, "...if there is no plan to sell, share price really doesn't matter now" is exactly why I was hoping the AAPL share price would dip before dividends get auto-reinvested. But it's also why I don't worry so much about the AAPL pullbacks. I had no plans to sell and I know the dividends will be buying a lot more shares. I was able to retire at 57, I am almost 65 now. Good for you! I'm envious because I didn't retire until I was 66 and am now 74. On the other hand, I can *remember* being 65...barely. I have never been tempted to get rich quick with options, leaps, etc. For me, the best plan was to get rich slowly which I encourage my young relatives to do. I never did understand rebalancing, selling winners. What's the chance of catching lightning twice? I feel the same as you, very lucky, not smart, though I did make my purchase based on years of following Apple. Back then I thought Apple would be a great investment based on the new operating system. When I read that it was portable, I just felt that great things would be possible. There were a few stagnant years, but once iTunes was ported to Windows, the flood gates opened. Getting rich slowly has a nice sound to it. I, also, don't understand all the folks on SA concerned about rebalancing their portfolios because AAPL has grown so much it is too high of a percentage of their holdings. Huh? I have been on this board since 2000, though I almost never post, I read it every day. You've been here much, much longer than me since I didn't join until 2012. I wish you and some of the other folks would post more frequently because so many members have moved on that I worry that the board will perish from lack of participation. Thanks your comment, galleybob! So glad to read background info from some of the many AAPL Longs on this board. mstrmc
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4aapl
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Post by 4aapl on Aug 14, 2017 20:09:16 GMT -8
Getting rich slowly has a nice sound to it. I, also, don't understand all the folks on SA concerned about rebalancing their portfolios because AAPL has grown so much it is too high of a percentage of their holdings. Huh? I know it's obvious, but it's a risk management thing, for some. It really all depends on how much money you need in the future, and then securing that. While we've done well, I still don't consider us to be completely in the "footloose and fancy free" category. Now part of that is that there are people in our town that we know of that have high salaries, and spend a good portion of them, assuming that they will always be ongoing. Personally, I started following the Retire Early board on TMF nearly 20 years ago, and so often think about the 4% rule. And while that's a nice number, we're 25 years from full SS retirement, have 3 young kids, and in the past have temporarily had our portfolio down 85% as many as 6 times. While I no longer play with options, and keep our margin much much lower in total percentage (it's now at what most people would have if they owned two houses, but currently at 1.75%), I personally feel that while we remain concentrated in AAPL, living off 2% is much more prudent. That said, while I have faith in Apple, I also see that it's growth has slowed down tremendously, as has AAPL's. Likewise, while I've heard of many people making their riches off of other stocks (Dell, MSFT, etc), most of those have plateaued for at least a while. Truthfully, our main account is just now at what it was at the high 5 years ago. That's mostly because of options that we held then that didn't work out, and we have pulled out modest living expenses plus money to pay off a small mortgage. But that means instead of that +80% over 5 years, that both AAPL and the S&P500 managed, we instead are at about 0% in that account...though due to some options being called early, all of our shares were sold and then re-bought, so we do have a higher cost basis and paid some taxes. OTOH, my Roth must be up about 85% after dividends, and is up 10 fold from when I rolled it over back at the end of 2008 I believe. Now that's a nice thing to have pre-paid the taxes on, at a low. So for us, it does become a sort of risk/reward situation. While we are at a happy place, truthfully we'd be even happier by diversifying a bit more and gaining a higher safe withdrawal rate. While that higher rate might be double of what we really need, I'm sure we'll figure out something to do with it. That said, the reward of AAPL doubling from here might not be worth the risk of it, temporarily or otherwise, halving. And that, mainly because we have 3 kids in elementary school, creates a much different risk/reward situation than you have now, or that I have had most of the past 20 years. I hope that makes sense, though I know you've thought enough about it that you know this. While having a concentrated portfolio has worked well for us, it's time to move it from extremely concentrated to just very concentrated. Over the past 10 years we've bought 2 houses outright, which now are about 20-25% of our portfolio (personally I also don't recommend this, though I do see some advantages when looking forward to college costs). My plan is to sell off some of our AAPL shares and move them into the S&P and maybe some individual companies, aiming for getting to 50% in non-AAPL investments. That's still crazy high to most people, but luckily I haven't really had financial advisers get after me too much about our portfolio allocations. The poison pill is that if we decide to move back to CA (the differential on out of state tuition at a UC for 12 years of school is now a third of a million...large enough that it's hard to ignore), we'd first sell out all of our positions since CA income tax would double our rate. If we sold everything, we might very well choose a lower percentage. Until then, or because of that possibility, I'll be going for 100 days of skiing this season. Whether I decide to make that easier by being a low paid ski instructor is a different question. (5-12 years ago I was spending 40-60 hours a week reading investment articles and posts like this. I found, especially as I decided I was happy with long term buy and hold, that that was pointless. I now spend much less time following things, which gives me much more time for other things. But that means I walked away from TMF, a small yahoo board dissolved, and I barely post here. OTOH, I do enjoy coming here when something is happening with the stock, whether a sudden move, or just earnings/WWDC/etc. Thanks for helping keep it interesting)
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Post by Luckychoices on Aug 14, 2017 21:36:43 GMT -8
Getting rich slowly has a nice sound to it. I, also, don't understand all the folks on SA concerned about rebalancing their portfolios because AAPL has grown so much it is too high of a percentage of their holdings. Huh? I know it's obvious, but it's a risk management thing, for some. It really all depends on how much money you need in the future, and then securing that. While we've done well, I still don't consider us to be completely in the "footloose and fancy free" category. Now part of that is that there are people in our town that we know of that have high salaries, and spend a good portion of them, assuming that they will always be ongoing. Personally, I started following the Retire Early board on TMF nearly 20 years ago, and so often think about the 4% rule. And while that's a nice number, we're 25 years from full SS retirement, have 3 young kids, and in the past have temporarily had our portfolio down 85% as many as 6 times. While I no longer play with options, and keep our margin much much lower in total percentage (it's now at what most people would have if they owned two houses, but currently at 1.75%), I personally feel that while we remain concentrated in AAPL, living off 2% is much more prudent. That said, while I have faith in Apple, I also see that it's growth has slowed down tremendously, as has AAPL's. Likewise, while I've heard of many people making their riches off of other stocks (Dell, MSFT, etc), most of those have plateaued for at least a while. Truthfully, our main account is just now at what it was at the high 5 years ago. That's mostly because of options that we held then that didn't work out, and we have pulled out modest living expenses plus money to pay off a small mortgage. But that means instead of that +80% over 5 years, that both AAPL and the S&P500 managed, we instead are at about 0% in that account...though due to some options being called early, all of our shares were sold and then re-bought, so we do have a higher cost basis and paid some taxes. OTOH, my Roth must be up about 85% after dividends, and is up 10 fold from when I rolled it over back at the end of 2008 I believe. Now that's a nice thing to have pre-paid the taxes on, at a low. So for us, it does become a sort of risk/reward situation. While we are at a happy place, truthfully we'd be even happier by diversifying a bit more and gaining a higher safe withdrawal rate. While that higher rate might be double of what we really need, I'm sure we'll figure out something to do with it. That said, the reward of AAPL doubling from here might not be worth the risk of it, temporarily or otherwise, halving. And that, mainly because we have 3 kids in elementary school, creates a much different risk/reward situation than you have now, or that I have had most of the past 20 years. I hope that makes sense, though I know you've thought enough about it that you know this. While having a concentrated portfolio has worked well for us, it's time to move it from extremely concentrated to just very concentrated. Over the past 10 years we've bought 2 houses outright, which now are about 20-25% of our portfolio (personally I also don't recommend this, though I do see some advantages when looking forward to college costs). My plan is to sell off some of our AAPL shares and move them into the S&P and maybe some individual companies, aiming for getting to 50% in non-AAPL investments. That's still crazy high to most people, but luckily I haven't really had financial advisers get after me too much about our portfolio allocations. The poison pill is that if we decide to move back to CA (the differential on out of state tuition at a UC for 12 years of school is now a third of a million...large enough that it's hard to ignore), we'd first sell out all of our positions since CA income tax would double our rate. If we sold everything, we might very well choose a lower percentage. Until then, or because of that possibility, I'll be going for 100 days of skiing this season. Whether I decide to make that easier by being a low paid ski instructor is a different question. (5-12 years ago I was spending 40-60 hours a week reading investment articles and posts like this. I found, especially as I decided I was happy with long term buy and hold, that that was pointless. I now spend much less time following things, which gives me much more time for other things. But that means I walked away from TMF, a small yahoo board dissolved, and I barely post here. OTOH, I do enjoy coming here when something is happening with the stock, whether a sudden move, or just earnings/WWDC/etc. Thanks for helping keep it interesting) Wow! Thank you for taking the time to leave such a thoughtful, detailed comment. My original comment aside, I suppose I really do understand why some folks are more sensitive to risk or perceived risk than others. As I've said many times on this board, I was lucky. Our retirement could have been much more spartan if that luck had been bad instead of good. With 3 children in elementary school, I'm sure you're younger than my two sons who are 45 and 48 and you're a fairly long way from retirement. Your investment planing for the years until retirement and beyond are impressive. Being able to spend 100 days skiing during ski season is also impressive. Congratulations on enjoying your present while planning for your future! Best of luck to you. Hope to meet you at Apple Park for the next Apple Shareholder's Meeting.
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4aapl
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Post by 4aapl on Aug 15, 2017 7:46:57 GMT -8
With 3 children in elementary school, I'm sure you're younger than my two sons who are 45 and 48 and you're a fairly long way from retirement. Your investment planing for the years until retirement and beyond are impressive. Being able to spend 100 days skiing during ski season is also impressive. Congratulations on enjoying your present while planning for your future! Best of luck to you. Hope to meet you at Apple Park for the next Apple Shareholder's Meeting. Thanks Lucky! While we're only slightly younger than your kids, I saved a lot up front right out of school. And while it's taken hits many times, things have worked out. Occasionally various people have thrown all the numbers out there, as you have. While I like seeing that, I fear that it drives some people away from the true wisdom in the posts, whether that's due to the absolute numbers in value, the timeframe, or the age. There was a member on TMF doing that for a while, and unlike you it made it sound more like boasting. I decided that in most cases, the total figure didn't matter much, but rather the percent gain of a trade. If I was buying 200 options at a time, someone else could be buying 2000, and someone else 20 or even 2. Trading costs, especially on options, would start to matter more on the very low end, but it would be virtually the same. That's the long way to say that I try to not put absolute numbers out there, for a variety of reasons including this. But just for kicks, our age is a prominent figure in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe, and our total portfolio value is roughly yours divided by our number of kids. Like you, one could consider us "lucky". But as a reminder, I believe it was you that once pointed out that luck was only a small portion of it, nearly non-existent. The biggest factor, for anyone investing money but even more so for someone investing a significant amount of their income, is deciding that they are willing to save and invest that money instead of spending it at that time. Instead of buying a new car or house with my signing bonus or new found income stream as an engineer at Motorola just out of school, I put it into stocks....primarily AAPL. I didn't have much money, but I would put a few thousand into my account when I could, and then invest it. The next factor is actually picking the stock. In the 1998-2000 timeframe, nearly everything was a winner. People would always talk of their winners, and how well they were doing, and how "their stock" was the best. I had others than just AAPL at the time. I know I owned AMD and SBUX for a while. 3M. Pixar. Not too many, but a small variety. I day traded 8x8 once, and Slotskies. I day shorted AMZN once at it's relative top. Everything made money, just as it did for everyone. And then it didn't. After that painful readjustment, which forced me to sell many things since I had used more and more margin, I did slowly migrate into mostly AAPL. It was the company I felt I understood, and felt was unfairly marked down more than it should be. It had to pop back, right. Over the years that has been a reoccurring theme, and I think in general there are very few times that we, the longer term investors in AAPL, have felt that AAPL has been fairly valued. That last part is having the conviction to hold, when things are grim. I remember going out to dinner with a group of engineers I graduated with. This was 2 years after everyone started their jobs, in late 2000, in Silicon Valley. 6 months earlier they were talking up JDSU and the like. Now it was more about moving everything into cash, at the bottom. How many likely kept it there too long? I bet quite a few...just as I stayed a little too light in ~2009. Of those 3 things, saving and investing, picking the investments, and conviction to hold thru bad times, the only part that's somewhat lucky is that you picked the right investments. There aren't many that have done as well as AAPL over the past 20 years. OTOH, there are many that have matched AAPL over a portion of that timeframe, and many that have done better than AAPL over a portion of that timeframe. To throw one out there, AMZN over the past 5 years, versus AAPL only matching the S&P500's 80% gain over the past 5 years. There is some luck there, but I wouldn't consider it a single lottery ticket by any means. And I still kick myself for not investing in some of those companies in 97-99 that went up 10x in a single year. Anyways, I seem to remember you posting about that a while ago, that while one could simply think of it as luck, there's also a whole lot of non-luck that went with it. As for skiing and retirement, living in a ski town gives a whole lot of time in the snow, for better or worse. This winter was crazy, and I'm still dealing with occasional carpal tunnel that had it's onset with shoveling snow. I know of several people that made it to the mythical 100 days (and beyond) this year. But we're not spring chickens anymore, and with the reasonableness of season passes, often these days are an hour or two before work of some great skiing, rather than the start to finish days I remember occasionally in my youth. But while the census caller and I eventually agreed to put me down as semi-retired or retired, it's not quite what I label myself as yet. That is bound to happen eventually, especially if we d diversify a bit. But while it's easy to hide from the truth by saying I'm a consultant or my normal choice of an Investor, and for the line on taxes I'll likely always remain an Engineer, it is likely that in a year or two here I will start using that label, only 5 years after my last paycheck. Of course, these days you can just start programming a little, and quickly be a software developer or even bring it up to an Owner or CEO of the small company. I've put off any real software development for much too long, but still imagine it will happen this fall. After all, the kids go back to school next week. Hopefully there was some useful insights in all of that. Reno went back to school last week, so we're going to go hit the Discovery Museum....before an orthodontic appointment for 2 kids. There's still plenty of costs and unknowns out there!
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Post by Luckychoices on May 20, 2018 10:18:38 GMT -8
With 3 children in elementary school, I'm sure you're younger than my two sons who are 45 and 48 and you're a fairly long way from retirement. Your investment planing for the years until retirement and beyond are impressive. Being able to spend 100 days skiing during ski season is also impressive. Congratulations on enjoying your present while planning for your future! Best of luck to you. Hope to meet you at Apple Park for the next Apple Shareholder's Meeting. Thanks Lucky! While we're only slightly younger than your kids, I saved a lot up front right out of school. And while it's taken hits many times, things have worked out. Occasionally various people have thrown all the numbers out there, as you have. While I like seeing that, I fear that it drives some people away from the true wisdom in the posts, whether that's due to the absolute numbers in value, the timeframe, or the age. There was a member on TMF doing that for a while, and unlike you it made it sound more like boasting. I decided that in most cases, the total figure didn't matter much, but rather the percent gain of a trade. If I was buying 200 options at a time, someone else could be buying 2000, and someone else 20 or even 2. Trading costs, especially on options, would start to matter more on the very low end, but it would be virtually the same. That's the long way to say that I try to not put absolute numbers out there, for a variety of reasons including this. But just for kicks, our age is a prominent figure in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe, and our total portfolio value is roughly yours divided by our number of kids. Like you, one could consider us "lucky". But as a reminder, I believe it was you that once pointed out that luck was only a small portion of it, nearly non-existent. The biggest factor, for anyone investing money but even more so for someone investing a significant amount of their income, is deciding that they are willing to save and invest that money instead of spending it at that time. Instead of buying a new car or house with my signing bonus or new found income stream as an engineer at Motorola just out of school, I put it into stocks....primarily AAPL. I didn't have much money, but I would put a few thousand into my account when I could, and then invest it. The next factor is actually picking the stock. In the 1998-2000 timeframe, nearly everything was a winner. People would always talk of their winners, and how well they were doing, and how "their stock" was the best. I had others than just AAPL at the time. I know I owned AMD and SBUX for a while. 3M. Pixar. Not too many, but a small variety. I day traded 8x8 once, and Slotskies. I day shorted AMZN once at it's relative top. Everything made money, just as it did for everyone. And then it didn't. After that painful readjustment, which forced me to sell many things since I had used more and more margin, I did slowly migrate into mostly AAPL. It was the company I felt I understood, and felt was unfairly marked down more than it should be. It had to pop back, right. Over the years that has been a reoccurring theme, and I think in general there are very few times that we, the longer term investors in AAPL, have felt that AAPL has been fairly valued. That last part is having the conviction to hold, when things are grim. I remember going out to dinner with a group of engineers I graduated with. This was 2 years after everyone started their jobs, in late 2000, in Silicon Valley. 6 months earlier they were talking up JDSU and the like. Now it was more about moving everything into cash, at the bottom. How many likely kept it there too long? I bet quite a few...just as I stayed a little too light in ~2009. Of those 3 things, saving and investing, picking the investments, and conviction to hold thru bad times, the only part that's somewhat lucky is that you picked the right investments. There aren't many that have done as well as AAPL over the past 20 years. OTOH, there are many that have matched AAPL over a portion of that timeframe, and many that have done better than AAPL over a portion of that timeframe. To throw one out there, AMZN over the past 5 years, versus AAPL only matching the S&P500's 80% gain over the past 5 years. There is some luck there, but I wouldn't consider it a single lottery ticket by any means. And I still kick myself for not investing in some of those companies in 97-99 that went up 10x in a single year. Anyways, I seem to remember you posting about that a while ago, that while one could simply think of it as luck, there's also a whole lot of non-luck that went with it. As for skiing and retirement, living in a ski town gives a whole lot of time in the snow, for better or worse. This winter was crazy, and I'm still dealing with occasional carpal tunnel that had it's onset with shoveling snow. I know of several people that made it to the mythical 100 days (and beyond) this year. But we're not spring chickens anymore, and with the reasonableness of season passes, often these days are an hour or two before work of some great skiing, rather than the start to finish days I remember occasionally in my youth. But while the census caller and I eventually agreed to put me down as semi-retired or retired, it's not quite what I label myself as yet. That is bound to happen eventually, especially if we d diversify a bit. But while it's easy to hide from the truth by saying I'm a consultant or my normal choice of an Investor, and for the line on taxes I'll likely always remain an Engineer, it is likely that in a year or two here I will start using that label, only 5 years after my last paycheck. Of course, these days you can just start programming a little, and quickly be a software developer or even bring it up to an Owner or CEO of the small company. I've put off any real software development for much too long, but still imagine it will happen this fall. After all, the kids go back to school next week. Hopefully there was some useful insights in all of that. Reno went back to school last week, so we're going to go hit the Discovery Museum....before an orthodontic appointment for 2 kids. There's still plenty of costs and unknowns out there! Thanks Lucky! While we're only slightly younger than your kids, I saved a lot up front right out of school. And while it's taken hits many times, things have worked out. >>>Occasionally various people have thrown all the numbers out there, as you have. While I like seeing that, I fear that it drives some people away from the true wisdom in the posts, whether that's due to the absolute numbers in value, the timeframe, or the age. There was a member on TMF doing that for a while, and unlike you it made it sound more like boasting. ***Well, I’m sorry if anyone sees what I post as boasting but I would have made my username something like *AwesomeInvestor* instead of inserting the word lucky in my username if I were posting to boast. Being anonymous on the board should also tend to discourage anyone wanting to beat on their chest about their investing magnificence. >>I decided that in most cases, the total figure didn't matter much, but rather the percent gain of a trade. If I was buying 200 options at a time, someone else could be buying 2000, and someone else 20 or even 2. Trading costs, especially on options, would start to matter more on the very low end, but it would be virtually the same. ***I decided the opposite. If I were a trader and made 20% on a trade, it would matter how much was riding on my trade. Was it $20,000 or $200? I decided to use the actuals as a way to show that holding AAPL long term can pay off big, regardless of the share price pullbacks along the way. >>That's the long way to say that I try to not put absolute numbers out there, for a variety of reasons including this. But just for kicks, our age is a prominent figure in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe, and our total portfolio value is roughly yours divided by our number of kids. Like you, one could consider us "lucky”. ***So 42? I was 42 when I met my wife so that’s a great number. And wow, three kids and with a portfolio like that, you are *really* doing well. When I was 42, my two boys were teenagers and in high school but my *portfolio* was still in pre-school. >>But as a reminder, I believe it was you that once pointed out that luck was only a small portion of it, nearly non-existent. The biggest factor, for anyone investing money but even more so for someone investing a significant amount of their income, is deciding that they are willing to save and invest that money instead of spending it at that time. Instead of buying a new car or house with my signing bonus or new found income stream as an engineer at Motorola just out of school, I put it into stocks....primarily AAPL. I didn't have much money, but I would put a few thousand into my account when I could, and then invest it. 1. You’re right and fortunately when my wife and I got married we had similar ideas about most things, including money. We both grew up in homes where the family always lived within their means. When we married in 1986, that meant owning one car for 16 years and 206,000 miles. I guess that only worked well because we carpooled. My wife would also make an extra mortgage payment to principal when we could afford it…and didn’t plan to buy AAPL with the money. 2. Put a few thousand into our account when we could, and then invest it is exactly what *we* did. I remember very well going to the credit union, pulling money from my account and my wife’s into a cashier’s check payable to Charles Schwab and then driving over to their office at lunchtime to put the check into our account. >>The next factor is actually picking the stock. In the 1998-2000 timeframe, nearly everything was a winner. People would always talk of their winners, and how well they were doing, and how "their stock" was the best. I had others than just AAPL at the time. I know I owned AMD and SBUX for a while. 3M. Pixar. Not too many, but a small variety. I day traded 8x8 once, and Slotskies. I day shorted AMZN once at it's relative top. Everything made money, just as it did for everyone. And then it didn’t. ***We never day traded or shorted. We invested mainly in Tech but also Home Depot and others. >>After that painful readjustment, which forced me to sell many things since I had used more and more margin, I did slowly migrate into mostly AAPL. It was the company I felt I understood, and felt was unfairly marked down more than it should be. It had to pop back, right. Over the years that has been a reoccurring theme, and I think in general there are very few times that we, the longer term investors in AAPL, have felt that AAPL has been fairly valued. ***Never used margin. Not much of a risk taker with money. Never carried a balance on our credit cards but instead paid them off every month from the very start. >>That last part is having the conviction to hold, when things are grim. I remember going out to dinner with a group of engineers I graduated with. This was 2 years after everyone started their jobs, in late 2000, in Silicon Valley. 6 months earlier they were talking up JDSU and the like. Now it was more about moving everything into cash, at the bottom. How many likely kept it there too long? I bet quite a few...just as I stayed a little too light in ~2009. 1. If one is convinced they’ve picked their stock(s) wisely, conviction to hold is the most important, IMO. 2. JDSU? That was actually one of the stocks in which we lost money when Tech crashed. >>Of those 3 things, saving and investing, picking the investments, and conviction to hold thru bad times, the only part that's somewhat lucky is that you picked the right investments. There aren't many that have done as well as AAPL over the past 20 years. OTOH, there are many that have matched AAPL over a portion of that timeframe, and many that have done better than AAPL over a portion of that timeframe. To throw one out there, AMZN over the past 5 years, versus AAPL only matching the S&P500's 80% gain over the past 5 years. There is some luck there, but I wouldn't consider it a single lottery ticket by any means. And I still kick myself for not investing in some of those companies in 97-99 that went up 10x in a single year. ***AAPL has been so good to us that I've *never* wished we’d invested in any other stock, even if they had twice the growth in share price over the last 5 or 10 years. We benefit a great deal from our AAPL dividends because we buy more shares of AAPL with the dividends in our IRA’s and use the trust dividends to pay estimated taxes, monthly credit card bills and for travel. Since I’m older than dirt, I have to sell a great deal of AAPL shares from my IRA’s every year but we *never* sell shares other than those. That being the case, why would I wish for increased value for our portfolio? >>Anyways, I seem to remember you posting about that a while ago, that while one could simply think of it as luck, there's also a whole lot of non-luck that went with it. ***The luck part for us was scraping together the money we had left after the Tech Crash and investing it all into AAPL. >>As for skiing and retirement, living in a ski town gives a whole lot of time in the snow, for better or worse. This winter was crazy, and I'm still dealing with occasional carpal tunnel that had it's onset with shoveling snow. I know of several people that made it to the mythical 100 days (and beyond) this year. But we're not spring chickens anymore, and with the reasonableness of season passes, often these days are an hour or two before work of some great skiing, rather than the start to finish days I remember occasionally in my youth. But while the census caller and I eventually agreed to put me down as semi-retired or retired, it's not quite what I label myself as yet. That is bound to happen eventually, especially if we'd diversify a bit. But while it's easy to hide from the truth by saying I'm a consultant or my normal choice of an Investor, and for the line on taxes I'll likely always remain an Engineer, it is likely that in a year or two here I will start using that label, only 5 years after my last paycheck. Of course, these days you can just start programming a little, and quickly be a software developer or even bring it up to an Owner or CEO of the small company. I've put off any real software development for much too long, but still imagine it will happen this fall. After all, the kids go back to school next week. Hopefully there was some useful insights in all of that. Reno went back to school last week, so we're going to go hit the Discovery Museum....before an orthodontic appointment for 2 kids. There's still plenty of costs and unknowns out there! ***You’re living the life! An avid skier like yourself, living in such a great location with a terrific family and a *very* large number of shares of AAPL. As you previously suggested I might, I *do* consider you guys *very* “lucky"! ;-) => Sorry it took me 9 months to respond to your comment. And, *re-reading* the comment to which you responded, how could I ever write, "...you're a fairly long way from retirement" when you're clearly already retired? Continued good luck to *all* the AAPL Longs!!!
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4aapl
Moderator
Posts: 3,866
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Post by 4aapl on May 21, 2018 8:45:14 GMT -8
>>Of those 3 things, saving and investing, picking the investments, and conviction to hold thru bad times, the only part that's somewhat lucky is that you picked the right investments. There aren't many that have done as well as AAPL over the past 20 years. OTOH, there are many that have matched AAPL over a portion of that timeframe, and many that have done better than AAPL over a portion of that timeframe. To throw one out there, AMZN over the past 5 years, versus AAPL only matching the S&P500's 80% gain over the past 5 years. There is some luck there, but I wouldn't consider it a single lottery ticket by any means. And I still kick myself for not investing in some of those companies in 97-99 that went up 10x in a single year. ***AAPL has been so good to us that I've *never* wished we’d invested in any other stock, even if they had twice the growth in share price over the last 5 or 10 years. We benefit a great deal from our AAPL dividends because we buy more shares of AAPL with the dividends in our IRA’s and use the trust dividends to pay estimated taxes, monthly credit card bills and for travel. Since I’m older than dirt, I have to sell a great deal of AAPL shares from my IRA’s every year but we *never* sell shares other than those. That being the case, why would I wish for increased value for our portfolio? => Sorry it took me 9 months to respond to your comment. And, *re-reading* the comment to which you responded, how could I ever write, "...you're a fairly long way from retirement" when you're clearly already retired? Continued good luck to *all* the AAPL Longs!!! Thanks for replying, Lucky. I know how busy that retirement schedule can be It has been a while, but I'd probably add a 4th thing to my above mini-list. That is to be realistic and down to earth. That goes for retirement goals, portfolio goals, and individual stock goals. If I was constantly expecting AAPL to gain 30% a year these days, I'd also constantly be disappointed. And that might lead to trying to time the market with it or other investments, potentially gaining, but also potentially selling at the wrong time. There of course are times where I wish our net worth was quite a bit more, but whereas those thoughts 20 years ago were on the order of picking up an NSX when my portfolio hit 7 digits, it's now more on the order of seeing what things (generally good things) some of the billionaires do with their money, locally and further afield. Someone always has grass that looks greener, and I'm sure I would manage to find good things to do with that amount of resources. But being realistic and down to earth, one can help rein in the lofty dreams and enjoy what you have or is more likely to be obtained. We have enough, and that freedom gives us plenty of time with out family and to do the things we want, which I'd gladly take over sending our kids to private elementary schools and having more nannies than kids. If the extra rewards in the equation have no added value, then there's no need to take extra risks. Thanks AAPL! And thanks Lucky and every one else who contributes to this place to make it a wonderful resource!
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Post by Luckychoices on Jun 2, 2018 16:55:26 GMT -8
When activity on the board is slow, I’ve gotten used to spending way too much time, reading and commenting about Apple-related articles over on Seeking Alpha. I’m afraid I don’t add anything new to the dialog other than speaking out in favor of long-term investment in AAPL, since I’m convinced it’s a winning strategy. Even though three years ago, I started out on SA speaking in general terms regarding the investment my wife and I have made, I’ve occasionally used actual numbers when I’ve been frustrated with the “Apple has peaked”, “Tim Cook is no Steve Jobs” or some of the other ridiculous slams against Apple/AAPL. Bottom line, my username on SA, "All*AAPL", should leave no doubt about my conviction regarding AAPL as a long-term investment. I recently had the following interaction with the person who wrote an article titled, Why I Am Buying Apple . As you can tell, he didn’t think much of my wife and I being 100% invested in AAPL. The conversation starts with a comment from a person who said, “I love AAPL, though with so many people following it, Yada Yada.” Comments from an article on Seeking Alpha titled: Why I Am Buying Apple by PendragonY ============================== All*AAPL Comments (2119) |+ Follow dreimink47 said: === "I love AAPL, though with so many people following it, the fast growth days are over. We made great profits thru the last 10 years, it might be time to start looking for the next super growth company."=== ***Yes, because the only way to make "great profits" is with "the next super growth company". /s. ;-) These next two paragraphs are from a recent comment I made to the article, "An Exercise Showing Apple's Fair Value To Be Around $300". bit.ly/2k0ZySE>>"When I retired in 2008 and my wife retired in 2011, we rolled over our 401K and used the other 25% of our 401K money to bump our Apple stock totals. When we started investing only in AAPL, we expected that after retirement, we would probably eventually need to sell some stock each year to supplement our company pensions and my Social Security. When Apple restarted its dividend program in August of 2012, it made selling stock completely unnecessary and I now only sell AAPL stock each year to satisfy my RMD (Required Minimum Distribution). With the increased dividend that Apple will now pay, our yearly Apple dividends will total 5X(my pension [23 years] + my wife's pension [29 years] + my Social Security). Not bad revenue for a company that, according to one misguided soul on Seeking Alpha, *peaked* in 2015." Since 61% of our AAPL shares are in our IRA accounts, and all quarterly AAPL IRA dividends are reinvested in AAPL shares, when the AAPL share price pulls back, we only think about how many more shares those dividends will be buying. The more AAPL pulls back, the more new shares are added to our IRAs."<< As it happens, I've been retired since May 19 of 2008, exactly those 10 years you've been making "great profits". Now I have no idea whether you were trading or holding AAPL over the last ten years...but since we're *continuing* to make great profits, we'll be *staying* with AAPL. Good luck finding a better company in which to invest! ============================== PendragonY, Contributor Comments (28761) |+ Follow Author’s reply » Wow, that takes some big brass ones to go all in in your retirement account with any single company. Even Apple. It has stumbled in the past, there is no guarantee that it won't do so again.15 May 2018, 11:03 PM Reply 2 Like ============================== All*AAPL Comments (2119) |+ Follow PendragonY said: === "It has stumbled in the past, there is no guarantee that it won't do so again." === ***In the 18+ years we’ve been invested in AAPL, it’s had three big pullbacks to its share price: 2009, 2013 & 2016. We held during those years and now the value of our shares is 6.5X or 650% the value it was when I retired on May 19, 2008, 10 years ago. And that doesn't even include the AAPL dividends we've received since August, 2012. As is the situation with many other AAPL Longs on SA, when the share price pulls back, or "stumbles" to use your word, our AAPL dividends buy even *more* shares than they would have before the pullback. Occasional share price pullbacks don't worry long-term AAPL investors, IMO. ============================== PendragonY, Contributor Comments (28761) |+ Follow Author’s reply » All*AAPL, You can ignore the risk if you want, doesn't make it go away. And just look at Apple before Steve Jobs came back.============================== All*AAPL Comments (2119) |+ Follow PendragonY said: === "You can ignore the risk if you want, doesn't make it go away. And just look at Apple before Steve Jobs came back." === ***As modestly as possible, without using actual dollar amounts, I tried to provide an accurate summary of how successful my wife and I, and all other AAPL Longs, have been over the last 18+ years, just by continuing to hold shares of AAPL while ignoring the AAPL naysayers who've been predicting "Apple is doomed", "Apple has peaked", or have been stridently insisting that "Apple doesn't innovate anymore", "Tim Cook is no Steve Jobs", etc. as a reason to sell or not buy AAPL. When you, as the author of an article titled, "Why I Am Buying Apple", replies to my summary with a comment like you did, it's a mystery to me why you would bother to write the article in the first place. Let me paraphrase your response, “Just because AAPL Longs have been *enormously* successful for *18+* years or so, remember what it was like for Apple *21* years ago, before they had the iPod, iMac, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iPad, iPhone, Apple TV, etc.”. Really? Why not a warning to stay out of the stock market completely because of the Wall Street Crash of 1929, *89* years ago? Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s *smart* that you’re buying AAPL shares and I have every reason to believe that, if you hold them for several years, they’ll make a very nice, positive impact on your portfolio. I’m just suggesting that you should take a little comfort from those of us who have held AAPL successfully for years and not be unduly influenced by those who always see potential negatives in Apple’s successes. ============================== PendragonY, Contributor Comments (28761) |+ Follow Author’s reply » All*AAPL, I am sorry but it is a very different thing to buy some shares of AAPL versus having your entire retirement dependent on AAPL. It doesn't matter HOW successful it has been in the past, you have NO control of what it will do in the future. That is a huge risk.============================== All*AAPL Comments (2119) |+ Follow PendragonY said: === "I am sorry but it is a very different thing to buy some shares of AAPL versus having your entire retirement dependent on AAPL." === ***That's true. And I wasn't *recommending* it, only stating that was how we chose to invest in AAPL after the Tech Crash. === "It doesn't matter HOW successful it has been in the past, you have NO control of what it will do in the future." === ***That's true of all stocks. === "That is a huge risk." === ***Our risk, like that of *many* AAPL Longs, is that if the AAPL share price drops 80%, and doesn't recover, we'll go from *rich* to *less rich*. I'm fine with that. ==============================
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Post by Luckychoices on Jun 3, 2018 15:38:43 GMT -8
Ten Years RetiredLess than 2 weeks ago, on 05/19/18, I celebrated my 10th year of retirement from Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Sunnyvale, California and I decided that’s worth an update post. I originally created this thread in 2015 because of all the negativity and warnings I kept encountering online(not on AFB) about *owning* Apple stock long-term instead of *trading* it to take advantage of its volatility. From our own experience, having held AAPL for over 14 years, I felt the warnings and commonly accepted “rules” about “balancing one’s portfolio”, etc. were, many times, at cross purposes with investing success. At least it was for us. I had no misgivings about posting private information about our investment because, since members were anonymous, I didn’t imagine that board members would consider my post boasting, given the username I chose when I joined the board which emphasized the fact I’ve never claimed to be a *savvy* investor, just a lucky one. In spite of the surges and pullbacks in the share price, the value of our shares on 05/19/18 was $30,078,332 greater than the day I retired in 2008, which means the *value* of our shares have increased an average of $3M/year over the last 10 years and has more than doubled in the 4 years since I started this thread. That’s impressive, IMO, but nowhere near the performance of other tech stocks during that period. Netflix, for example, is up about 80% just since the first of 2018. Yet I would never want to sell any or all of our AAPL stock to buy *any* other stock. Perhaps, if my wife and I owned *many* different stocks, Netflix might be one of them. But only under that condition because we’d never be able to sleep nights if we were 100% invested in any single stock, other than AAPL. Dividends and new shares - We’ve also received $2,015,055.00 in dividends since Apple re-started their dividend program in August of 2012 and, since approximately 62% of our AAPL shares reside in our IRA’s, and our IRA dividends are set to auto-reinvest, those IRA dividends have been used to purchase a total of 11,638.17 shares over that period. With the recent dividend increase, our yearly AAPL dividends (trust and IRA's) are a little over 5 times (my pension[after 23 years] + my wife's pension[after 29 years] + my Social Security). Obviously, when I retired in 2008 and my wife in 2011, we had no expectations of dividends when doing our retirement planning, so it was just a wonderful surprise. RMD (Required Minimum Distribution) - For the last 5 years, since I turned 70.5, I’ve been subject to the RMD where one is required, every year, to withdraw an amount from one’s IRA’s an amount equal to the total value of one’s IRA’s divided by a life expectancy number determined from a table. Essentially, the total value of one’s IRA investments are divided by the number of years one is expected to live. :-) My 2017 RMD amount was $236,223.55, which was somewhat higher than previous years. Since the value of my personal IRA’s have continued to increase, as the AAPL share price has increased, even while my life expectancy number is decreasing, my total 2018 RMD for my IRA’s is $353,070.97. The RMD is satisfied by removing that *value* from the IRA’s but the shares can either be sold or transferred to a trust account. We’ve been selling the shares each year to pay estimated taxes, pay off our credit card bills each month, and for travel. The RMD amount is added to gross income for tax purposes. The following is a copy of the summary section I keep in the upper corner of the first sheet of my AAPL spreadsheet so I can easily get an overview. When I update the current date and share price on this sheet, all other sheets that have share price in a formula are updated. I inserted the 2015 information out of sheer frustration over an Apple naysayer on Seeking Alpha constantly referring to Apple’s *peak* in 2015. I have to admit to being fine with an increase of +43.5% since the ATH in 2015. So that’s my yearly May update to this thread. I’m hoping and anticipating we’ll see more successful product releases by Apple over the next year and that the stock will continue its slow but steady gain. One of the first things I do every morning is to check in with the AFB, so many thanks to Since84, who starts things off every weekday morning with links, AAPL information and positive words. Thanks also to chinacat who kicks it off on the weekend and to all the AFB folks who provide the commentary that continues to make this site important to those of us who have invested in this great company. And, as always, cheers to the AAPL Longs!!
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Post by aaplcrazie on Jun 3, 2018 17:10:44 GMT -8
Luckychoices, You Sir Are One Steely Eyed Missile Man!
Sierra Hotel.
The Crazy One Long AAPL
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