Jumping Back Into Apple

I have been holding back from buying Apple shares (AAPL) for the past 10 months, since back in June, 2015, the last time the shares peaked at $132.50.

That was when the stock fully discounted the launch of the iPhone 6s, it's last blockbuster product. I knew then that the company was about to enter a wide parched desert of falling sales, declining earnings, and sliding share prices.

We have just reached the end of that desert.

I have been saying for all of 2016 to buy (AAPL) after the disastrous Q1 earnings. So I am going to put my money where my mouth is and do exactly that.

From today?s $95.20 low the shares have to gain 28.15% to match their old high. I expect them to do exactly that by the end of the year.

The driver will be the launch of the iPhone 7 in September, which the entire world is obviously holding back to buy.

From this point on, Apple is a long play. Put your buying boots on, stop those buy rights, sell short some puts, salt away some shares in your 401k. I?m talking about a total risk reversal here.

Worst case, you lose $5; best case, you make $37.30. A risk/reward ratio like that is hard to find these days in this indifferent market.

With a PE multiple of 9X and $230 billion in cash on the books, every value player in the world is going to be forced to load up on these shares or get fired.

If you buy the stock, you will be competing with the company to do so, which announced a further $50 billion in buy backs yesterday.

It was definitely a pig of an earnings report that took the stock down 8% at the opening. Sales of its flagship product, iPhones, at 51.2 million units were actually better than the 50.3 million units that were expected.

But overall sales fell for the first time in 13 years. China revenues were down an eye popping 26%. The comps were terrible. But then, we knew all this was coming.

I thought there were more positives in the report than negatives. Service revenues leapt by 20% and are now the second biggest earner in the company, after iPhones. That?s where the future of the company lies, in things like Apple Pay and itunes.

The dividend will be increased by 10% to 2.20%. In a NIRP (negative interest rate) world that is positively high yield.

Record numbers of Android owners are switching to iPhones.

I have covered this company for 36 years and knew co-founder Steve Wozniak when he was a teenager. My first ?buy? of the stock was at a split-adjusted price of $1.

There is one thing that I have learned.

When things are good, they are never as good as people think they are. When they are bad, things are really not as bad as they appear either.

This is one of those latter times.