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http://www.macnn.com/articles/02/10/28/aapl.gets/

AAPL gets an 'F', lowest rating from Schwab

updated 09:25 am EST, Mon October 28, 2002

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Charles Schwab's new stock-rating system, aimed at "helping investors recognize underperformers," --the lowest available: "Per our analysis, Apple is pretty unattractive across the board. It's still selling at an above-average multiple of earnings and cash flow. Management is issuing shares (as opposed to buying them back), which we mentioned before that we don't like to see. And short-sellers are selling more and more of Apple short."

by MacNN Staff

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10/28, 09:33am | report spam | close Reply |
How about rating Schwab?

I wonder how well they would rate themselves. They haven't been doing so stellar lately. You'd think if their ratings system was so good, they'd be doing very well.

Ah well, such is the life of analysts. They don't know enough to make themselves rich, just enough to tell other people to make it sound believable.

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10/28, 09:47am | report spam | close Reply |
brought to you by...

the same people who rated AOL a strong buy as late as a last spring...

hey guys what do you say about Enron, or Global Crossing?

amazing how these jack asses still have jobs

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10/28, 09:55am | report spam | close Reply |
Wait and see

Unfortunately we are stuck in a loop now. Apple has to transition out of OS 9 to OS X before we're going to see any real new developments. I do believe that we will see a whole lot of new development out of Cupertino. But we have to wait for the Dec. 31st deadline first. Once Mac OS 9 is officially considered Obsolete we'll have new hardware that just might quite possibly blow the doors off of what we'll see coming out of Intel and the lot. This is not by far the darkest period of Apple's history. We'll make it through this.

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10/28, 09:57am | report spam | close Reply |
Hmm...nothing about cash

Funny, but nowhere does Schwab mention Apple's $11+ per share pile of liquid assets. The company itself is therefore valued at something like $4.50 per share. I wonder if Schwab's rating system thinks that is too high.

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10/28, 09:59am | report spam | close Reply |
Stock Analysts...

Smock analysts. I'd put more money on the weatherman now than any stock analysts.

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10/28, 10:00am | report spam | close Reply |
Stock Market

The stock market is a crock of s***.

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10/28, 10:04am | report spam | close Reply |
Keep up with this...

They can keep making reports like this all they like, AAPL is up over 15 for the first time in quite a while, and almost hit 16 this morning. :)

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10/28, 10:06am | report spam | close Reply |
16/100

Dow Theory Reports gave them an Overall Rating of 16 out of 100.

0hwgray1
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10/28, 10:11am | report spam | close Reply |
It's obvious

Because Apple stock is "still selling at an *above-average* multiple of earnings and cash flow," it earns an F. Clearly, the stock needs to sell at a *below-average* multiple of earnings and cash flow to have a chance of earning an A.

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10/28, 10:17am | report spam | close Reply |
who cares

These analysts have no credibility anyways. These people always have alterior motives when they recommend stocks.

Do you own research. And investigate the accounting as much as possible.

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10/28, 10:31am | report spam | close Reply |
Right!

...so, these are the guys working in cubicles, for the equivalent of minimum wage, telling us how badly AAPL is doing - while Steve Jobs has a private jet, and is a multi-millionaire.

Personally, I believe that most advice from minimum wage broker / workers in cubicles is worth just about .... nothing - particularly when they themselves have a history of performing below-average in their 'advice'.

Why *DO* these people have a job?

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10/28, 10:31am | report spam | close Reply |
hardware

it won't be anytime soon that really new hardware comes out for the mac, perhaps like the cpu, just hardware bumps.....

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10/28, 10:33am | report spam | close Reply |
jet

What does having a jet have to do with anything? Maybe he blew everyone on the board and they gave that to him for a gift...

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10/28, 10:43am | report spam | close Reply |
Face it...

...Apple's got a tough year ahead. They'll be weathering a storm, no doubt. But I'm sure they'll make it through alright, thanks to the ferocious defensiveness of the faithful.

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10/28, 11:01am | report spam | close Reply |
Brokers

Aren't these the poeple that helped push the stock market to such heights that companies like Cisco were worth well over $100B, and garbage dot-coms were being pushed and valued at prices a million times earnings (oh, wait, dot-coms didn't have earnings). They didn't seemed too concern when "Fred's website" had earnings of $500K and debt of 400 million.

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10/28, 11:05am | report spam | close Reply |
Re: Right!

>particularly when they themselves have a history of performing below-average in their 'advice'.

Actually, stocks with high Dow Theory Forcast Quadrix ratings have outperformed handily over the years. Once again they gave AAPL an 16 out of 100 last week.

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10/28, 11:45am | report spam | close Reply |
buy now

Obviously if the analysts are saying not to buy now then its a good time to buy. These are the same guys that were saying BUY BUY BUY in late '99 before the market collapsed. Great visionaries eh?

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10/28, 11:46am | report spam | close Reply |
buy now

Obviously if the analysts are saying not to buy now then its a good time to buy. These are the same guys that were saying BUY BUY BUY in late '99 before the market collapsed. Great visionaries eh?

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10/28, 01:06pm | report spam | close Reply |
Numbers are now NOT then.

This "F" report is based on the numbers, and maybe a little on relatively accurate short term predictions, but that's it. The folks at Schwab don't care about what may happen six or twleve months down the road, what's happening with the Switch campaign or OSX or whatever, instead merely letting people know where things are at NOW with Apple.

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10/28, 01:23pm | report spam | close Reply |
ANALysts

People don't understand: These guys underrate Apple, my management teacher says Steve Jobs has no charisma (hah!), and some dope on the radio thinks Bill Gates invented computers. It just proves the point that "normal" people are just idiots who sound smart.

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10/28, 01:34pm | report spam | close Reply |
F

An F! Haha - is there such thing as F minus?. Since I bought APPL at $35, I'd like a chance at giving Jobs and his BOD a realistic grade.

Oh, but Steve-o took a $45mil bonus last year - for shitting on the head of Apple users and APPL shareholders. Nice.

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10/28, 02:07pm | report spam | close Reply |
RE: F

.....An F! Haha - is there such thing as F minus?. Since I bought APPL at $35, I'd like a chance at giving Jobs and his BOD a realistic grade.....

Didn't the stock split since then?

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10/28, 02:09pm | report spam | close Reply |
Yes it did...

Yes the stock splitted... So his stock went from 35$ to about 30-32 $ today if we double it... Not good, but not as bad as he says.

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10/28, 03:35pm | report spam | close Reply |
You bought at $35?!

Boy that was Stupid

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10/28, 03:43pm | report spam | close Reply |
Not complete bull

There are at least two points in this article that should be of concern to people who view their Apple stock as an investment (as opposed to some sort of testament to their undying loyalty to the brand... those folks are beyond help):

1) Apple's corporate governance is weak and its Board is dominated by insiders. There is simply no logical reason in this economy for Apple to be paying Steve Jobs as much as they are. A genetically engineered hybrid of Jack Welch, Warren Buffet and Jesus Christ isn't worth what they're paying him. He is slowly but surely losing touch with reality.

2) Short-sellers are beginning to target Apple. Stocks like Apple are a prime target for shorts. They bid the price down, cover, then wait for the "faithful" to bid it back up on the theory that they're getting "cheap" shares. You get into a cycle where shorts are effectively harvesting the hard-earned dollars of the faithful.

But that's enough rational thought for one day. Please, get back on your soap boxes and go on pontificating about how economists and investment bankers are idiots and only people who invest with their emotions make money in the long run...

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10/28, 03:46pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: $35

Hey, it could've been worse. He could've bought when it was at $150.

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10/28, 03:46pm | report spam | close Reply |
You bought at $35?!

You bought at $35?!

Replace '35' with any other number and the statement is still as accurate. Buying stock in a POS, greedy, money grabbing company like Apple is always a losing propostion.

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10/28, 03:54pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: Not complete bull

But let's not forget that a lot of short sellers are brokers who also then go around crapping on the stock they've bought short. Just like when they would crow about a piece of c*** stock to boost its price (half the time because they or the company owned shares they wanted to dump, half the time because they were being paid to shill the stock by the company).

The point is, how can you trust anyone's opinion on a stock when they're business involves the buying and selling of the same? Seems like a conflict of interest to me. And considering the battering the big brokerage houses have taken over the last couple of years over the paid-shilling of stocks and the 'let's hype it so we can sell it' stuff (not to mention the complete disregard for a company's financial records, which they should've been reviewing to make sure the companies were worth what they said they were worth before telling us to go out and buy MCI, because its a damn good stock), its amazing anyone takes what they say seriously. Its like listening to MS say 'We're going to play by the rules'.

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10/28, 03:56pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: $35

You bought at $35?!

Replace '35' with any other number and the statement is still as accurate. Buying stock in a POS, greedy, money grabbing company like Apple is always a losing propostion.

Hey, wait, you mean we want to own stock in companies that aren't greedy and don't grab for money? Great! Let me know when you find one...

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10/28, 03:57pm | report spam | close Reply |
Haha!

Apparently Charles Schwabs' opinion doesnt count for much anymore, looks like AAPL is going to end up for the day.

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10/28, 04:10pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: Re: Not complete bull

But let's not forget that a lot of short sellers are brokers who also then go around crapping on the stock they've bought short. Just like when they would crow about a piece of c*** stock to boost its price (half the time because they or the company owned shares they wanted to dump, half the time because they were being paid to shill the stock by the company).

And this information is somehow going to stop them from driving down the price of Apple stock? Doubtful. The only long-term defense against short-sellers is to have a stable stock price and capable, respected senior management that has credibility on Wall Street. You don't get credibility by playing "cloak and dagger" with your company's financial information so that Wall Street has no clue what your earnings will be from one quarter to the next. You certainly don't gain credibility by filling your board with yes-men and yes-women and paying your CEO like it's still 1999. Have you ever wondered why institutional investors shun Apple?

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10/28, 04:18pm | report spam | close Reply |
$35?

That's $17.50 a share post-split. He could always be like me... I bought at $99 pre-split. Things were looking okay until they announced lower-than-expected earnings for one quarter, and the stock lost 60% of it's value in one day.

AAPL will have to get over $50 for those shares to turn a profit. Looks like a long-term holding for me now :/

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10/28, 04:34pm | report spam | close Reply |
AAPL performance

AAPL's Total-Return Performance
-------------------------------
Last 6 Months: %-39
Last 12 Months: %-20
YTD: %-33
3Yr (annualized): %-25
10Yr(annualized): %-04

[yes, those are negatives]

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10/28, 04:40pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: bull...

You don't get credibility by playing "cloak and dagger" with your company's financial information so that Wall Street has no clue what your earnings will be from one quarter to the next.

Exactly what 'cloak and dagger' are you talking about with Apple? The only surprises a company can pull without going bankrupt is to revise sales forecasts and thus earnings forecasts. Oh, and I don't see the inst. investors shunning MS when they were caught cooking their books to average sales over different quarters. In fact, most companies cook their books now, and always have. They're trying to boost earnings and profits to get the stock to go up.

You certainly don't gain credibility by filling your board with yes-men and yes-women and paying your CEO like it's still 1999. Have you ever wondered why institutional investors shun Apple?

Oh please. Inst. investors never liked apple even when they didn't have yes-men on the board, and 'real CEOs' ran it (if you can call Sculley or Amelio real-CEOs). And maybe you don't realize that if the investors don't like the board, they can vote them off (if not, why do we have the option to vote for them at all?). Inst. investors don't want to buy apple because they like to have a semblance of control on a company. They're in it for the money, and that's short-term money. Its probably a good thing they weren't invested, because they probably would've forced Apple's sale to Sony or the like by now, so they could reap some reward and make their bonus level for the quarter.

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10/28, 04:46pm | report spam | close Reply |
AAPL Performance

Damn! Odd, they look like my Mutual Funds performance, too...

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10/28, 08:09pm | report spam | close Reply |
The Stock Market...

Hmm... Apple posts a profit for 6 quarters in a row (check out http://www.apple.com/investor) and their stock price falls. Apple posts a quarter of loss and their stock prices raises??? And for that one loss and now Schwab wants to rate them an F? Bah, stupid stock market...

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10/28, 08:10pm | report spam | close Reply |
bah

Perhaps if the street weren't so eager to dump APPL as to cause it to fall 50% in one day, all over a $.01/share loss...after it took two and a half years of solid good news and profits to get that high.

I swear, the industry is so reluctant to count Apple for what it's worth, and so eager to point their finger at the slightest hint of anything but stellar news.

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10/28, 09:34pm | report spam | close Reply |
Charles Schwab

Charles Schwab and his company are complete and utter morons. Like we're all going to c*** in our pants now that one of their serfs shot his mouth off about things he doesn't understand. Yeah, right. Blistering idiots.

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AAPL gets an 'F', lowest rating from Schwab

updated 09:25 am EST, Mon October 28, 2002

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How about rating Schwab?

brought to you by...

Wait and see

Hmm...nothing about cash

Stock Analysts...

Stock Market

Keep up with this...

16/100

It's obvious

who cares

Right!

hardware

jet

Face it...

Brokers

Re: Right!

buy now

buy now

Numbers are now NOT then.

ANALysts

F

RE: F

Yes it did...

You bought at $35?!

Not complete bull

Re: $35

You bought at $35?!

Re: Not complete bull

Re: $35

Haha!

Re: Re: Not complete bull

$35?

AAPL performance

Re: bull...

AAPL Performance

The Stock Market...

bah

Charles Schwab

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