As Apple’s stock rides high, 7 reasons investors should worry

“Apple seems to be doing well: it’s once again the most valuable U.S. company, with a stock-market value of around $945 billion and its shares trading around $200,” Daniel Newman writes for MarketWatch.
“But if you dig a little deeper into Apple’s business, as I have, you will find plenty of reasons to worry,” Newman writes. “Below are seven red flags that suggest to me that Apple may, for the first time in over a decade, become a risky investment in the coming 12 to 24 months.”
1. Apple’s market is saturated: …People are holding on to their devices longer and/or moving to competitors’ devices.
MacDailyNews Take: All of the data we’ve seen show high iPhone loyalty.
2. Apple has stopped trying to be the best: This reminds me a lot of the Steve Ballmer era at Microsoft. Microsoft notably missed Mobile, Cloud, and Big Data because it was too focused on driving short-term profits for shareholders… Under Tim Cook, Apple has fallen into the same trap of no longer thinking of its users as its customers, and instead thinking of its investors as its customers. Innovation and design have become secondary considerations and it shows.
3. Apple has an identity crisis: Steve Jobs had vision. Tim Cook has spreadsheets. Spreadsheets don’t make great Apple products. Vision does.
MacDailyNews Take: Also true.
Tim’s not a product person, per se. – Steve Jobs discussing Tim Cook, as quoted by Walter Isaacson in “Steve Jobs”
4. Apple keeps missing the boat on innovation: Today, Apple no longer seems able or willing to create new markets in which to grow.
MacDailyNews Take: Too soon to make pronouncements like that. Apple Glasses alone could create a massive new market for smartglasses and transform everyday life in the process.
5. Apple has fallen behind: On the phone side, Huawei and Samsung are reinventing the smartphone with foldable technology, 5G and a plethora of other advanced features.
MacDailyNews Take: Poppycock. Those foldables are beta-esque (or worse) jokes and 5G is nowhere near in place and ready to go.
6. Apple quality isn’t what it was: Consumers don’t want to pay for a premium experience, only to suffer the kinds of quality-control issues they were trying to get away from in the first place.
MacDailyNews Take: Sounds familiar.
7. Apple has a growing trust problem: The list of Apple’s misdeeds in the last few years is sadly growing.
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Some of this list is overwrought, overblown FUD, but some of it also rings very true. Apple brass would be wise to take note and make qualitative improvements ASAP.
SEE ALSO:
Tim Cook is not the best person to be CEO of Apple – April 2, 2019