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NelsonLee92
2021-12-23

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Are there any bubbles in Apple stock?

Apple stock has risen 34% this year, beating the NASDAQ 100 by a wide margin.This has led some to say that the stock is in a bubble, as its price is rising rapidly.However, Apple's stock price gains are about in line with revenue growth, and actually slower than the most recent quarter's EPS growth.In this article, I will develop a bullish thesis on Apple, arguing that it has a wide moat that will power future growth and profitability.Apple Inc. stock has delivered a solid performance in 2021. U

Are there any bubbles in Apple stock?

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{"i18n":{"language":"en_US"},"data":{"magic":2,"id":9000564794,"tweetId":"9000564794","gmtCreate":1640235462347,"gmtModify":1676533510630,"author":{"id":4099298428767980,"idStr":"4099298428767980","authorId":4099298428767980,"authorIdStr":"4099298428767980","name":"NelsonLee92","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/ac1472e6181e2a551a65b4829b22a7d9","vip":1,"userType":1,"introduction":"","boolIsFan":false,"boolIsHead":false,"crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"individualDisplayBadges":[],"fanSize":3,"starInvestorFlag":false},"themes":[],"images":[],"coverImages":[],"extraTitle":"","html":"<html><head></head><body>Tell me your opinion about this news...</body></html>","htmlText":"<html><head></head><body>Tell me your opinion about this news...</body></html>","text":"Tell me your opinion about this news...","highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":1,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"favoriteSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/9000564794","repostId":1164467804,"repostType":2,"repost":{"id":"1164467804","kind":"news","pubTimestamp":1640230809,"share":"https://www.laohu8.com/m/news/1164467804?lang=&edition=full","pubTime":"2021-12-23 11:40","market":"us","language":"en","title":"Are there any bubbles in Apple stock?","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1164467804","media":"Seeking Alpha","summary":"Apple stock has risen 34% this year, beating the NASDAQ 100 by a wide margin.This has led some to say that the stock is in a bubble, as its price is rising rapidly.However, Apple's stock price gains are about in line with revenue growth, and actually slower than the most recent quarter's EPS growth.In this article, I will develop a bullish thesis on Apple, arguing that it has a wide moat that will power future growth and profitability.Apple Inc. stock has delivered a solid performance in 2021. U","content":"Summary\n<ul>\n <li>Apple stock has risen 34% this year, beating the NASDAQ 100 by a wide margin.</li>\n <li>This has led some to say that the stock is in a bubble, as its price is rising rapidly.</li>\n <li>However, Apple's stock price gains are about in line with revenue growth, and actually slower than the most recent quarter's EPS growth.</li>\n <li>In this article, I will develop a bullish thesis on Apple, arguing that it has a wide moat that will power future growth and profitability.</li>\n</ul>\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/9e9d29c6db997dd98e087415e7e2acfe\" tg-width=\"1536\" tg-height=\"1036\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Justin Sullivan/Getty Images News\nApple Inc.(AAPL) stock has delivered a solid performance in 2021. Up 35% for the year, it has solidly outperformed both the NASDAQ 100 and the S&amp;P 500. The latest in a long streak of winning years for the company, Apple’s 2021 shows that a stock is never too big to beat the market.\nWith that said, there’s no shortage of people who think Apple’s winning run is due for a correction. In recent weeks, we’ve seen a deluge of articles claiming that AAPL is overvalued, with titles like:\n<ul>\n <li>“Apple Stock is Now a Bubble.”</li>\n <li>“Why Apple Stock May Be a Bubble That’s Ready to Burst.”</li>\n <li>“Sell AAPL? Why This Expert Sees Apple Stock Dipping 12%”</li>\n</ul>\nNot all of these articles have been unambiguously bearish. A few mention positives along with negatives. But generally speaking, the sentiment that Apple is a bubble, or at least overvalued, is becoming common. If you look at&nbsp;TipRanks’ sentiment chart, it shows decisively negative sentiment toward Apple stock.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/ce8357bc3eaf626336dbf12b2ff1f410\" tg-width=\"485\" tg-height=\"457\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: TipRanks’ sentiment chart\nThe bearishness of investor sentiment toward Apple becomes clear when we compare it to the sentiment toward&nbsp;Meta Platforms(FB). Meta, a company that is being sued for antitrust violations and getting attacked in the press daily, has a nearly perfect sentiment score. So there is no special tech curse that guarantees negative sentiment toward individual stocks in the sector. Apple’s sentiment problem is indeed its own problem.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/68bc8cf3f8fc200c2b7a9c85e69cc9f2\" tg-width=\"488\" tg-height=\"461\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">\nWhich begs the question:\nWhy?\nApple is a wide-moat stock, one of the few tech companies that controls both hardware and software for most of its users. Many companies have attempted to copy Apple’s strategy of maximizing revenue by integrating hardware and apps, but few have succeeded at it. If you want the IOS or Mac OS experience, you need an iPhone or Mac. And billions of people want those experiences enough to pay top dollar for Apple’s products. Few other tech companies have that advantage –&nbsp;Nintendo(OTCPK:NTDOY) being one exception, if you count gaming as tech.\nThis makes Apple arguably a&nbsp;wide-moat stock. You need Apple hardware to run Apple software, and people like Apple software. This gives Apple a “monopoly” on a certain collection of software experiences. It does not have a monopoly on any particular device category, but it’s the only company that can provide the integrated&nbsp;Apple ecosystem.\nThis advantage has paid dividends to Apple shareholders – both figuratively and literally. Apple is the world’s biggest company by market cap and the&nbsp;fourth-biggest by revenue. Its revenue growth rate has slowed in recent years, but certain segments (such as watches and services) are growing faster than ever. It appears, then, that Apple still has the potential for significant profitability and growth. Accordingly, I’ll develop a bullish thesis on Apple in this article, arguing that its solid economic moat provides potential for its stock to appreciate in the future.\nCompetitive Landscape\nOne of the most important things to understand about Apple is its competitive position. The company operates in such a wide variety of different markets that it’s hard to pin down its business beyond simply “tech.” Technically, the company’s SIC Code (industry classification) is 7372, denoting “prepackaged software.” However, this doesn’t capture the full extent of Apple’s business activities, as it’s also involved in hardware, semiconductors,payments&nbsp;and entertainment.\nSome of Apple’s most noteworthy competitors include:\n<ul>\n <li>Samsung(OTC:SSNLF) - smartphones.</li>\n <li>Huawei- smartphones.</li>\n <li>Alphabet(GOOG) - smartphones, laptops, and software.</li>\n <li>Microsoft(MSFT) - laptops.</li>\n <li>Dell(NYSE:DELL)- laptops.</li>\n <li>Adobe(ADBE) - creative software.</li>\n <li>And many more.</li>\n</ul>\nA comprehensive list of Apple’s competitors would be impossible to come up with, because the company operates in so many different verticals. In addition to all the names above, Apple is arguably in competition with the big semi companies, as it sells phones and laptops with Apple chips. Apple is one of the most comprehensive tech companies around, with a massive lineup of hardware, software and services, putting it in tacit competition with dozens of companies.\nHow is Apple doing in the industries it competes in? According to&nbsp;Counterpoint Research&nbsp;and Statista, Apple’s market shares include:\n<ul>\n <li>Smartphones: 47% in the US and 14% globally.</li>\n <li>Laptops: 15% in the US and 7.6% globally.</li>\n <li>Smartwatches: over 50% globally.</li>\n <li>Tablets: 35% globally.</li>\n</ul>\nOn the whole, Apple is in first or second place in most of its markets. It’s behind Samsung on smartphone sales but it leads in watches and tablets. This is a pretty good market position. And it could grow over time. Some of Apple’s product categories are still fairly new. The company only just recently broke into smart watches and&nbsp;sales in the category are growing at 50%. Apple has taken heat lately for its slowing growth, but certain products within the company’s lineup are growing faster than ever. This provides potential for strong growth well into the future.\nThe M1 Chip and Apple Services\nSpeaking of future growth, it’s worth exploring two of Apple’s most promising categories:\nThe M1 Chip and Apple Services.\nThe M1 Chip (really the M1 family of chips now) is a new chip designed by Apple based on ARM architecture. The base configuration boasts:\n<ul>\n <li>An 8-core CPU.</li>\n <li>A 7-core GPU.</li>\n <li>8 or 16 gigs of RAM (physically built into the chip).</li>\n <li>5nm process.</li>\n <li>16 billion transistors.</li>\n <li>3.2 GHZ max clock rate.</li>\n</ul>\nIncredible specs. And on top of that, there are two new models–the M1 Pro and M1 Max–that offer improvements on the base model. It would be tedious to list detailed spec sheets for these higher end models, but one eye-popping stat is the M1 Max’s 57 billion transistors. This competes with the CPUs included in extremely high end gaming PCs. And of course, that makes newer Macs themselves viable as gaming rigs, as countless&nbsp;YouTube reviewers have noted. Apple already has a sizable market share in laptops and desktops, but with the M1 chip family, it now has a shot at capturing the gaming segment as well. Until now, that market segment has proven elusive to Apple. So, there is significant potential for accelerating growth in Apple’s computer lineup.\nNext up is Apple services. This is a broad category that includes streaming music, movies, books and more. This category is always expanding and could potentially drive more growth after hardware growth slows down. In the most recent quarter, service growth actually&nbsp;lagged product growth, at 25% vs 30% for the latter. However, services are promising because they’re a category that could continue to grow even after hardware products reach their total addressable market. Global smartphone sales have been&nbsp;flat-lining after years of strong growth. In this environment, it would be unrealistic to expect Apple’s hardware sales to grow as fast as they did in the past. But by selling more services to existing customers, Apple can keep growing its total revenue even as hardware sales underwhelm.\nFinancials and Valuation\nNow we can turn to Apple’s financials.\nApple’s most recent quarter was a&nbsp;miss on both revenue and earnings; however, the results were strong in absolute terms. In the quarter, Apple delivered:\n<ul>\n <li>$83 billion in revenue, up 29%.</li>\n <li>$27.3 billion in operating income, up 60%.</li>\n <li>$20.5 billion in net income, up 63%.</li>\n <li>$1.24 in diluted EPS, up 69%.</li>\n</ul>\nThe company also reported $104 billion in TTM cash from operations in its fourth quarter report. That was up 28% from the year before.\nThese were pretty solid results. Especially for a mature company. Apple is the biggest company in the world by market cap, yet its revenue and earnings are both up by growth stock levels. And this one quarter wasn’t a fluke. According to&nbsp;Seeking Alpha Quant, Apple’s five-year CAGR growth rates in the metrics listed above are:\n<ul>\n <li>Revenue: 11%.</li>\n <li>Operating income: 12.7%.</li>\n <li>Net income: 15.7%.</li>\n <li>Diluted EPS: 22%.</li>\n <li>Cash flow: 10.7%.</li>\n</ul>\nAgain very solid for a mature company. It does look like the most recent quarter was better than average, but the long-term metrics are still very good. Which gets to the heart of this article’s thesis:\nApple is definitely not a bubble stock. Its valuation is fairly steep, as it trades at 30 times earnings, 7.7 times sales, and 26 times cash flow. But the company still has plenty of growth potential. Compounded annually, its earnings are growing at 22%, and as the most recent quarter showed, it has room for acceleration. If you factor in both growth and value, you get a&nbsp;PEG ratio of just 0.43&nbsp;for the trailing 12-month period. That’s far from a bubble valuation. In fact, it looks downright cheap.\nRisks and Challenges\nWhile Apple is definitely an ultra-profitable company with strong growth and a moderate valuation, its stock is not without its risks. As a major hardware company, it is vulnerable to supply chain issues, and other shocks. Some major risks and challenges to the bullish thesis outlined in this article include:\n<ul>\n <li>Supply chain issues.The world is currently going through a chip shortage, as well as shortages of various other hi-tech parts. These problems are affecting Apple. Just recently, the company&nbsp;slashed iPhone production&nbsp;because of supply chain issues. That right before the crucial Holiday season, no less. These kinds of problems are an ever-present threat for a hardware company like Apple, which depends on a ready supply of raw materials to keep sales flowing.</li>\n <li>Scale.Mathematically, the bigger something gets, the larger of an increase is needed to drive percentage gains equal to past ones. If you start selling $1,000 widgets and sell one your first year, you double your sales just by selling $2,000 worth the next year. If, however, ten years later, you’re selling $332 billion worth, you need customers to come up with $664 billion in the eleventh year to achieve the same growth. This is mathematically unlikely. And as it just so happens, Apple’s $83 billion Q4 revenue annualizes to $332 billion. So growth will be harder to achieve going forward.</li>\n <li>Disruption.Apple’s business model requires that it stay on the leading edge of tech innovation. If another company comes out with something decisively superior to the iPhone, that could kill Apple’s business overnight. Apple itself&nbsp;did this once, to&nbsp;BlackBerry(BB), makers of the ill-fated BlackBerry Smartphone. The history of the tech industry is littered with companies eating each other's lunch, and while Apple has billions to spend on R&amp;D, you never know where the next threat will come from.</li>\n</ul>\nThe above are some very real risks for investors to keep in mind. The supply chain risk, in particular, is very real, having been cited as a problem in several quarterly reports. With that said, Apple stock has an incredible moat, decent growth, and a not-unreasonable valuation. This is definitely not a stock to short. And while the gains realized by longs will not be as good in the future as they were in the past, they should still be decent.","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>Are there any bubbles in Apple stock?</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nAre there any bubbles in Apple stock?\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2021-12-23 11:40 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4476363-apple-stock-no-bubble>Seeking Alpha</a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\nSummary\n\nApple stock has risen 34% this year, beating the NASDAQ 100 by a wide margin.\nThis has led some to say that the stock is in a bubble, as its price is rising rapidly.\nHowever, Apple's stock ...\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4476363-apple-stock-no-bubble\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{"AAPL":"苹果"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4476363-apple-stock-no-bubble","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/e9f99090a1c2ed51c021029395664489","article_id":"1164467804","content_text":"Summary\n\nApple stock has risen 34% this year, beating the NASDAQ 100 by a wide margin.\nThis has led some to say that the stock is in a bubble, as its price is rising rapidly.\nHowever, Apple's stock price gains are about in line with revenue growth, and actually slower than the most recent quarter's EPS growth.\nIn this article, I will develop a bullish thesis on Apple, arguing that it has a wide moat that will power future growth and profitability.\n\nJustin Sullivan/Getty Images News\nApple Inc.(AAPL) stock has delivered a solid performance in 2021. Up 35% for the year, it has solidly outperformed both the NASDAQ 100 and the S&P 500. The latest in a long streak of winning years for the company, Apple’s 2021 shows that a stock is never too big to beat the market.\nWith that said, there’s no shortage of people who think Apple’s winning run is due for a correction. In recent weeks, we’ve seen a deluge of articles claiming that AAPL is overvalued, with titles like:\n\n“Apple Stock is Now a Bubble.”\n“Why Apple Stock May Be a Bubble That’s Ready to Burst.”\n“Sell AAPL? Why This Expert Sees Apple Stock Dipping 12%”\n\nNot all of these articles have been unambiguously bearish. A few mention positives along with negatives. But generally speaking, the sentiment that Apple is a bubble, or at least overvalued, is becoming common. If you look at TipRanks’ sentiment chart, it shows decisively negative sentiment toward Apple stock.\nSource: TipRanks’ sentiment chart\nThe bearishness of investor sentiment toward Apple becomes clear when we compare it to the sentiment toward Meta Platforms(FB). Meta, a company that is being sued for antitrust violations and getting attacked in the press daily, has a nearly perfect sentiment score. So there is no special tech curse that guarantees negative sentiment toward individual stocks in the sector. Apple’s sentiment problem is indeed its own problem.\n\nWhich begs the question:\nWhy?\nApple is a wide-moat stock, one of the few tech companies that controls both hardware and software for most of its users. Many companies have attempted to copy Apple’s strategy of maximizing revenue by integrating hardware and apps, but few have succeeded at it. If you want the IOS or Mac OS experience, you need an iPhone or Mac. And billions of people want those experiences enough to pay top dollar for Apple’s products. Few other tech companies have that advantage – Nintendo(OTCPK:NTDOY) being one exception, if you count gaming as tech.\nThis makes Apple arguably a wide-moat stock. You need Apple hardware to run Apple software, and people like Apple software. This gives Apple a “monopoly” on a certain collection of software experiences. It does not have a monopoly on any particular device category, but it’s the only company that can provide the integrated Apple ecosystem.\nThis advantage has paid dividends to Apple shareholders – both figuratively and literally. Apple is the world’s biggest company by market cap and the fourth-biggest by revenue. Its revenue growth rate has slowed in recent years, but certain segments (such as watches and services) are growing faster than ever. It appears, then, that Apple still has the potential for significant profitability and growth. Accordingly, I’ll develop a bullish thesis on Apple in this article, arguing that its solid economic moat provides potential for its stock to appreciate in the future.\nCompetitive Landscape\nOne of the most important things to understand about Apple is its competitive position. The company operates in such a wide variety of different markets that it’s hard to pin down its business beyond simply “tech.” Technically, the company’s SIC Code (industry classification) is 7372, denoting “prepackaged software.” However, this doesn’t capture the full extent of Apple’s business activities, as it’s also involved in hardware, semiconductors,payments and entertainment.\nSome of Apple’s most noteworthy competitors include:\n\nSamsung(OTC:SSNLF) - smartphones.\nHuawei- smartphones.\nAlphabet(GOOG) - smartphones, laptops, and software.\nMicrosoft(MSFT) - laptops.\nDell(NYSE:DELL)- laptops.\nAdobe(ADBE) - creative software.\nAnd many more.\n\nA comprehensive list of Apple’s competitors would be impossible to come up with, because the company operates in so many different verticals. In addition to all the names above, Apple is arguably in competition with the big semi companies, as it sells phones and laptops with Apple chips. Apple is one of the most comprehensive tech companies around, with a massive lineup of hardware, software and services, putting it in tacit competition with dozens of companies.\nHow is Apple doing in the industries it competes in? According to Counterpoint Research and Statista, Apple’s market shares include:\n\nSmartphones: 47% in the US and 14% globally.\nLaptops: 15% in the US and 7.6% globally.\nSmartwatches: over 50% globally.\nTablets: 35% globally.\n\nOn the whole, Apple is in first or second place in most of its markets. It’s behind Samsung on smartphone sales but it leads in watches and tablets. This is a pretty good market position. And it could grow over time. Some of Apple’s product categories are still fairly new. The company only just recently broke into smart watches and sales in the category are growing at 50%. Apple has taken heat lately for its slowing growth, but certain products within the company’s lineup are growing faster than ever. This provides potential for strong growth well into the future.\nThe M1 Chip and Apple Services\nSpeaking of future growth, it’s worth exploring two of Apple’s most promising categories:\nThe M1 Chip and Apple Services.\nThe M1 Chip (really the M1 family of chips now) is a new chip designed by Apple based on ARM architecture. The base configuration boasts:\n\nAn 8-core CPU.\nA 7-core GPU.\n8 or 16 gigs of RAM (physically built into the chip).\n5nm process.\n16 billion transistors.\n3.2 GHZ max clock rate.\n\nIncredible specs. And on top of that, there are two new models–the M1 Pro and M1 Max–that offer improvements on the base model. It would be tedious to list detailed spec sheets for these higher end models, but one eye-popping stat is the M1 Max’s 57 billion transistors. This competes with the CPUs included in extremely high end gaming PCs. And of course, that makes newer Macs themselves viable as gaming rigs, as countless YouTube reviewers have noted. Apple already has a sizable market share in laptops and desktops, but with the M1 chip family, it now has a shot at capturing the gaming segment as well. Until now, that market segment has proven elusive to Apple. So, there is significant potential for accelerating growth in Apple’s computer lineup.\nNext up is Apple services. This is a broad category that includes streaming music, movies, books and more. This category is always expanding and could potentially drive more growth after hardware growth slows down. In the most recent quarter, service growth actually lagged product growth, at 25% vs 30% for the latter. However, services are promising because they’re a category that could continue to grow even after hardware products reach their total addressable market. Global smartphone sales have been flat-lining after years of strong growth. In this environment, it would be unrealistic to expect Apple’s hardware sales to grow as fast as they did in the past. But by selling more services to existing customers, Apple can keep growing its total revenue even as hardware sales underwhelm.\nFinancials and Valuation\nNow we can turn to Apple’s financials.\nApple’s most recent quarter was a miss on both revenue and earnings; however, the results were strong in absolute terms. In the quarter, Apple delivered:\n\n$83 billion in revenue, up 29%.\n$27.3 billion in operating income, up 60%.\n$20.5 billion in net income, up 63%.\n$1.24 in diluted EPS, up 69%.\n\nThe company also reported $104 billion in TTM cash from operations in its fourth quarter report. That was up 28% from the year before.\nThese were pretty solid results. Especially for a mature company. Apple is the biggest company in the world by market cap, yet its revenue and earnings are both up by growth stock levels. And this one quarter wasn’t a fluke. According to Seeking Alpha Quant, Apple’s five-year CAGR growth rates in the metrics listed above are:\n\nRevenue: 11%.\nOperating income: 12.7%.\nNet income: 15.7%.\nDiluted EPS: 22%.\nCash flow: 10.7%.\n\nAgain very solid for a mature company. It does look like the most recent quarter was better than average, but the long-term metrics are still very good. Which gets to the heart of this article’s thesis:\nApple is definitely not a bubble stock. Its valuation is fairly steep, as it trades at 30 times earnings, 7.7 times sales, and 26 times cash flow. But the company still has plenty of growth potential. Compounded annually, its earnings are growing at 22%, and as the most recent quarter showed, it has room for acceleration. If you factor in both growth and value, you get a PEG ratio of just 0.43 for the trailing 12-month period. That’s far from a bubble valuation. In fact, it looks downright cheap.\nRisks and Challenges\nWhile Apple is definitely an ultra-profitable company with strong growth and a moderate valuation, its stock is not without its risks. As a major hardware company, it is vulnerable to supply chain issues, and other shocks. Some major risks and challenges to the bullish thesis outlined in this article include:\n\nSupply chain issues.The world is currently going through a chip shortage, as well as shortages of various other hi-tech parts. These problems are affecting Apple. Just recently, the company slashed iPhone production because of supply chain issues. That right before the crucial Holiday season, no less. These kinds of problems are an ever-present threat for a hardware company like Apple, which depends on a ready supply of raw materials to keep sales flowing.\nScale.Mathematically, the bigger something gets, the larger of an increase is needed to drive percentage gains equal to past ones. If you start selling $1,000 widgets and sell one your first year, you double your sales just by selling $2,000 worth the next year. If, however, ten years later, you’re selling $332 billion worth, you need customers to come up with $664 billion in the eleventh year to achieve the same growth. This is mathematically unlikely. And as it just so happens, Apple’s $83 billion Q4 revenue annualizes to $332 billion. So growth will be harder to achieve going forward.\nDisruption.Apple’s business model requires that it stay on the leading edge of tech innovation. If another company comes out with something decisively superior to the iPhone, that could kill Apple’s business overnight. Apple itself did this once, to BlackBerry(BB), makers of the ill-fated BlackBerry Smartphone. The history of the tech industry is littered with companies eating each other's lunch, and while Apple has billions to spend on R&D, you never know where the next threat will come from.\n\nThe above are some very real risks for investors to keep in mind. The supply chain risk, in particular, is very real, having been cited as a problem in several quarterly reports. With that said, Apple stock has an incredible moat, decent growth, and a not-unreasonable valuation. This is definitely not a stock to short. And while the gains realized by longs will not be as good in the future as they were in the past, they should still be decent.","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"tweetType":1,"viewCount":235,"commentLimit":10,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"symbols":[],"verified":2,"subType":0,"readableState":1,"langContent":"EN","currentLanguage":"EN","warmUpFlag":false,"orderFlag":false,"shareable":true,"causeOfNotShareable":"","featuresForAnalytics":[],"commentAndTweetFlag":false,"andRepostAutoSelectedFlag":false,"upFlag":false,"length":33,"xxTargetLangEnum":"ORIG"},"commentList":[],"hasMoreComment":false,"orderType":2}