BusinessWeek does Apple. It reports in a story called “The Hazards of Forecasting Apple” that “after a 24% fall, price targets (from Wall Street analysts) range from $270 to $1,111.” BusinessWeek doesn’t give its own estimate. Coward.
My personal forecast is that Apple will basically go nowhere from here. Steve is gone. The senior management is in uproar and deserting the ship. Samsung (and other Android smartphones) are selling more phones than Apple. And Apple has no new game-ganging, earth-shattering products on the horizon.
You don’t need to read the BusinessWeek. You won’t learn anything — just as you won’t learn anything from the rest of BusinessWeek. Sad.
How one beautiful reader solved the Active Trader Problem – when Fidelity couldn’t. Start at the beginning. I like Fidelity’s Active Trader Pro for buying and selling stocks, and for giving me the stock charts I use in this column. I’ve used it for years. It works great under Windows XP. But when I bought a new laptop with Windows 7, it went awry. It failed to list stocks I owned. It go my “history” all wrong. Its balances were off by thousands of dollars, etc. Hours of working with Fidelity accomplished nothing. Last week, after much frustration with Fidelity, I recommended in this column against using it. Fortunately one reader had the answer.:
I use active trader pro (classic … not the beta) with windows 7 for about a year. I’m not sure what your problems are … but I can help you on two points:
1. Active trader pro will erroneously report today’s gains/loss if you do not have the “correct” date format setup in windows. Go to Control Panel/Region and Language/Date&Time/Change Calendar Settings/Additional Settings and then click on Date. The short date format must be “MM/dd/yy” and the long date format must be “MMMM dd, yyyy”
2. DEP – Data Execution Prevention. Active Trader Pro can not run under this and you must setup an exception. (The Beta version doesn’t care).
Go to control Panel/System/Advanced Systems Settings and click on the Advanced tab. Then click on the Performance “Settings” Then click on “Data Execution Prevention” If you have selected “Turn on DEP for ALL programs” … then you need to add an exception for the “Active Trader Pro” application. (Again not required for the beta version).
Hope this helps …
I’m also aware of a “bug” in how Active Trader Pro reports todays gains/losses. It will not report the gains/losses correctly for an option that has “split” due to a reverse stock split. This happened to me when I had Citigroup options .. and Citigroup did a 1 for 10 reverse split… These options never again reported the correct gains … for over one year .. I finally closed the position a few days ago … so no longer have to put up with this junk data.
Active Trader Pro is not perfect … but Caveat Emptor! Beware of others softwares …. There are others with more problems! We should expect perfection … but seldom have it
! don’t use the Active Trader Pro Beta because it has more problems!
He’s right. I tested his solution on two laptops reach running Windows 7 and it works perfectly. I’m happy. Thank you.
The lesson here remains: Don’t upgrade to a new Windows if the old one is working fine. Don’t be seduced by claims of speed or new features, or whatever other BS. Delay upgrading until you have to. You will find there’s always software you’re running happily that won’t run happily on the new system. Microsoft is not as forgiving as Apple, for example. Apple is much better about computability with old software.
Is Facebook worth buying? It’s come back from its low of $17.55 and is, sort of, approaching its $45.00 high. And, though I’ve missed the run from $17.55 I still don’t think it’s worth buying at these levels.
The real question with Facebook is can you use it to sell soap? There’s a brilliant article on the front page of the New York Times’ Sunday Review called”Can Social Media Sell Soap?” The answer is “probably not.” You should read the piece. It’s written by Stephen Baker, who’s knows his stuff. Click here.
In contrast Google has done well in recent months:
Sunday: I arrive at tennis. The kid behind the counter is working on a PowerPoint type presentation. I ask him what software he’s using? Ten minutes later he’s still ranting about how fabulous the software is. It’s Google Drive. Using it, you can do everything you can do with Microsoft Office and helluva lot more. Several things impressed me:
1. It automatically saves every character I type. I can never lose anything. Never.
2. Many people can be working on the presentation together — irrespective of where there are or which computer they’re using. Perfect for team projects.
3. The whole thing is free — up to 5 gigabytes per person.
4. The user interface is clean, intuitive, easy to use. And puts Microsoft’s Office mess to shame.
I’m poking around this morning on all the other things Google offers — from Google Maps, to Google Finance, to Google Reader, to Google Blogger, to Google Voice, to Google Panoramio… I add in that Google’s Android is the top smartphone OS and I realize there’s a lot of really interesting innovation going on at Google — much more than Apple or Microsoft. Friday, the government ruled that Google is not a monopolist. Big coup for Google!
Am I wrong about Google? Ask your kids if they’re using it? Most are. Ask them how they like it? No one will use Microsoft’s Office after they’ve tried Google Docs. And Office is one of Microsoft’s two biggest cash cows — Office and Windows.
Charts by Fidelity Active Trader Pro.
Favorite recent New Yorker cartoons.
Harry Newton, who is off to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this evening. I’ll be meeting with the English DDD and other interesting companies. I love seeing all the new gadgetry, and eyeing trends.
My personal forecast is that Apple will basically go nowhere from here.
HA HA HA HA HA HA, that’s why I read this site, for the huge belly laughs! HA HA HA HA HA. And Facebook too. OH my god, five years from now today’s Harry Newton’s post will be classic!
Harry, you are developing a lopsided distorted view of investments. Apple has changed the world, yours and mine and everyone elses, and there is no reason to think they won’t continue to do this. And what do they have, like $140,000,000,000 in cash. And the same two guys that orchestrated things before, Cook & Ivy, still do. And Facebook is worthless, yet that one you are looking at investing in. Vincent
You misread. I did not say to buy Facebook. In fact I was negative on it.
when I read “It’s come back from its low of $17.55 and is, sort of, approaching its $45.00” it sounded positive, like you were watching it, to maybe get in…but yes, you said you didn’t think it was worth buying.