Apple Inc. (AAPL)

[moneyisfornothing]

You and your dividends.

"Subject to declaration by the Board of Directors, the Company plans to initiate a quarterly dividend of $2.65 per share sometime in the fourth quarter of its fiscal 2012, which begins on July 1, 2012."

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2012...e-Program.html



Edit: sorry Spudd, I had not seen your post.

well Gibor lives on divvys T.gal?
i wish i could

[GOB]

Looks like I (at least temporarily) made a good call on the bottom:

I would say $530 would be a good spot to get in if it ever gets there - that level provides a 2% yield so may provide a solid floor.

$530 is the magic number for a 2% dividend that is ridiculously secure and almost sure to grow significantly. I imagine this is a great entry point for divided investors with a long term horizon.

My advice again to anyone considering the stock is to get in soon with at least a partial position. It's not worth waiting for a $20 or even $50 drop that may or may not happen when the stock is easily poised to double within a few years, and pay out a healthy dividend while you wait.

[moneyisfornothing]

very good call so far sir.
if it holds.........back to 625 for the short term.
cheers

[Lephturn]

Agreed on $ 530. My thesis for this trade was a combination of the fundamentals, trading action, and RSI at 30 which for AAPL has historically been an excellent opportunity. While much of my trading is non-directional, AAPL is one of the rare few where I want to be long. I am not a long term holder normally even in AAPL, but I feel like this is a once a year buying opportunity in AAPL.

Went synthetic long AAPL on Thursday.

05/17/2012 Buy To Open 1 AAPL Jan13 545 Call $62.58 ($6,265.47)
05/17/2012 Sell To Open 1 AAPL Jan13 505 Put $52.08 $5,200.40

It's not exactly a synthetic, but the overall risk profile is about the same with the exception of not being on the same strikes. I did this with the underlying at about $ 537, so not right at the bottom but close enough for me. Buying the stock would have cost me $ 53,700 or there about. This gets me a similar risk/reward profile for $ 1,065.07. Ok to be fair I am tying up about $ 19,000 in cash, but since the cash is there at the moment might as well use it. I went out to Jan 13 as I think this will get me several new product announcements, the new iPhone 5, and the fall buying season. It won't get me the fall season financial results but I'll likely be out before then.

Delta: 91.61 Gamma: 0.04 Theta: -1.32 Vega: 16.93

So a bit of negative theta there, but otherwise it's worked out pretty well. As the stock moves up and away from my short put I will either close it or buy something even further out to unlock the margin I am tying up with that naked short put.

When I entered this trade my stop was underlying below $ 520 - but I've moved that up now to $ 550 to lock in some profits. I'm hoping to let this run into the fall, but I'll trail a stop up as I go to ensure I lock in some gains.

[Dopplegangerr]

Very interesting Lephturn. I am new to options, what do you expect this will earn you in till Jan 2013?

[ddkay]

Meh, backtest at downtrend line. Not interested in this again yet.

[kcowan]

The nobility behind the messiah at Apple:
How does the magic happen?
This will supply an insight into the magic of Apple. Sir Jon Ive is behind the scenes. Here is some more insight:
The designer-in-chief
Be sure to read both parts.

[Lephturn]

Very interesting Lephturn. I am new to options, what do you expect this will earn you in till Jan 2013?

It depends on where it goes - I already have a decent return on it if I sell it now. If it break's 550 I'll take my small gain and run, then position again later. As it sits before the open at $ 565 the position is up $ 2,395 - but I am in it for the longer haul. The speed with which buyers stepped in below $530 looks to be a very nice supply level. As to expected returns, I expect to see nice upside moves when they announce iTV and iPhone 5 - I expect the position to return between $5k and $20K by year end, but the idea is to leave the upside open and protect gains with very loose trailing stops. I won't use actual stops of course, I will use options to protect those gains.

[Lephturn]

I found the combo of $ 530, the sharp bounce off of $522, and a very low RSI pretty compelling combined with the fundamentals of this company. It's rare to have this company break the lower Bollinger band and get below 30 on the RSI. Historically that has been a VERY good time to buy this stock.

AAPL Chart

Agreed it's not comfortable or easy to pull the trigger long when it's down this much - catching a falling knife and all that - but the idea is to buy low and sell high and $ 520 - $535 looks like a really strong supply zone. That zone was tested in the first week of March and bounced off of it nicely - that's why I liked the level and went long around there.

Oh I forgot to mention - at these prices the dividend that starts next quarter will be close to 2%. For a stock with this kind of growth that is amazing. Also with a 2% dividend AAPL now can be bought by a wide variety of funds that were prevented from owning it in the past due to their mandate.

Now if they will only surprise us all and split this thing 10:1 we could really make some gains.

[brad]

Some interesting comments from Apple CEO Tim Cook here from yesterday's Wall Street Journal event:

http://www.macworld.com/article/1167...d_secrecy.html