Apple on track to become $2trillion company by December 2020?

It's surprising how few UK-based funds/trusts that invest globally hold Apple (e.g. Lindsell Train, Fundsmith, Baillie Gifford)

CreditCardChris wrote: »

Yeah it's pretty crazy. Since 2009 Apple has gained on average 0.58% a day or 2.9% a week or 17.4% a month! :eek:

Really fighting the urge to use my credit cards to buy and then move the debt to a 0% interest card.

I was a couple years too late investing in Apple. I "coulda" had 10x worth had I been more on the ball. The reason I bough Apple was the App Store. They get 30% commission on all sales, nearly all pure profit with practically no overheads. And that revenue is now starting to grow hugely.
I dont see Tesla doing these sort of Apple numbers but I do see 2x - 5x over say 10 years. Essentially the existing car manufacturers have completely missed the ball and are at least 5 years behind them In terms of capability vs cost . Traditional car manufacturers current EVs are very poor in comparison. Look at the new Porsche EV. 200 miles range at double the cost instead of 300 miles in the comparable Tesla.
If you are looking at getting an EV now and for at least the next 2-3 years, it's very difficult not to select Tesla they are so much better than most comparable EVs and even ones that shouldn't be. In the states they are taking purchases from cars that are $10k cheaper and so in theory aren't competitors since they are in a different buyer segment.
The only reason I didn't go Tesla with my next car purchase is they are too large for me plus werent hatchbacks and even then it was a close run decision. If Model Y was available now I might have gone for that.
And Tesla is now going to be much more than a car manufacturer. Grid level utlity storage, solar residential could be bigger than automotive.
Again I was late inTo Tesla but still sitting ona decent gain over the past 9 or so months.

I don't think Tesla is a good investment. Elon Musk is too much of a loose canon IMO, and although some of his ideas are good, he does not consider the full ramifications of what he does.

Take his Star-link project for example. While the idea to get internet access to everyone is good, Star-link satellites are annoying a lot of people. Firstly they are hindering astronomical observations, due to their brightness/sheer numbers (and we are only at the start, with many more launches to come).

Secondly, one Star-link has already been involved in a near miss, where ANOTHER satellite was forced to take evasive action in order to avoid a collision.

Junk in space (made worse by collisions) is a very big deal. It can easily get to the point where debris from an initial collision starts to cause further collisions, in a self-feeding positive feedback loop which could result in the end of the space age as we know it.

A lot of people are very worried about what he is doing up there. While it might not result in his company being sued (at least in the case of my first point), it shows how gung-ho he is, and that IMHO makes him uninvestable.

More screwups:
Crashing his Tessla in to Mars may have contaminated the planet with organisms from Earth, meaning that if we ever find life on Mars, we can't be sure that it was not due to Elon!

The recent launch of his new 4x4 "thing". The windows were supposedly bullet-proof, but a steel ball thrown at them easily breaks them. What else could probably go wrong, if he has not even made sure the things (windows) he was focusing on in his demonstration were not even checked/double-checked to ensure there was not a problem? Despite this, 10's of thousands have been pre-ordered. Only a matter of time till there is a product recall IMO!

Trying to sell flame throwers to the general public. WTX?! :eek:

While it might end up that none of this comes back to haunt him in a financial sense, I don't think it bodes well for the future of his operations.

Linton wrote: »

Apple's P/E ratio (share price/earnings) has more that doubled over the past 4 years. This indicates that it is priced on the expectation of future growth. Apple's profit's come from a very small number of products for a company of its size. Already it has been pushed to the very high end of the mobile phone market and the opportunities for technological improvement there could be rather limited. Where is the growth needed to justify its current price going to come from?

The App Store (almost pure profit, very low overheads) and subscription services (TV and music) .