Parchayi.com – Personal Finance Simplified

I acquired AAPL stock at prices ranging from $120 to $205. I had a sell order for about a third of my holdings at $250 but as the stock rose, I raised that to $275 and as the stock approaches that value after 600,000 iPhone 4 sales on day 1, I want to raise that to $300.

Should I be greedy or should I sell 1/3rd of my holdings at $275? I have been greedy before and lost money on NBF – a now defunct company. I have been greedy and made money on the India Fund – IFN.

But with AAPL right now it is a hard decision. But I might just let the order stand. As analysts “scramble” to raise targets, I wonder how big can Apple get? With a current market cap of about $245 billion, has Apple grown too big?

The iPhone4 managed to withstand all competition and iPad managed stellar sales despite the criticism. Will the iPad2, the iPhone5 and whatever else Apple has in store continue this trend? Will other manufacturers catch up and make a dent in future sales? Will people get fed up of AT&T and just move to some non-iPhone carrier?

Looking at it differently, Apple’s P/E is 22, which is only slightly higher than the 21 P/E of the Nasdaq in general. Considering that Apple seems to be a great buy at even current prices. The possibility that the iPhone will hit other US carriers and that it will continue it’s global expansion make Apple all the more attractive.

Either way I think I’ll take some profits now and if Apple ever falls below the $250 levels and things still look bright, I’ll buy it back.

For more comments and discussion visit this post on Seeking Alpha

I’ve been following all the liveblogs online and have everything investors need to know about the new iPhone.

So far the most significant thing about the iPhone itself that we didn’t know since the  leaked iPhone is that it has a gyroscope. That will make the iPhone the leading development platform for mobile gaming until someone else adds one. The rest of the stuff is nothing as great or as magical as Steve Jobs would like you to believe.

The other  significant thing is the improvement in image quality and the great HD video quality. I’m not sure how the EVO stands up to this but I’m sure the difference will not be significant except maybe in the quality of the video editing tools. Android will probably catch up quickly.

Ome more thing was multitasking. Finally iPhone OS has caught up to everyone else there.

The most significant thing not directly related to the technology is that AT&T will let users upgrade now as long as they are eligible at any point in 2010, that is six months in advance. This should drive sales.

I don’t know if Apple has had bad snafus like the one they had this time where NYT wouldnt load on the iPhone 4. Steve Jobs conveniently blamed it on everyone else using the wifi. But it worked for the 3GS and everyone else, just not the new iPhone. So maybe that things revolutionary antenna is not so revolutionary. It was funny when someone from the audience shouted Verizon when that happened.

It was disappointing to see that video conferencing will be wifi only for a while. Considering how long AT&T took to deliver tethering, I wouldn’t hold my breath for that on 3G anytime soon. EVO, anyone?

In a nutshell – The iPhone 4 has some new features, some of which are part of iPhone OS 4 and sone of which related to the hardware. The software ones will mostly be available as a free upgrade for most older devices. Considering that iPhone revisions happen only once a year, other manufacturers will catach up soon. But so far the iPhone maintains a harware lead.

Some other highlights:

• iPhone OS was renamed to iOS and Steve Jons introduced the new iAd platform and claims that it will take nearly half the mobile ad marketshare for the second half of 2010
• Nearly 1 billion in payments have been made to developers
• Other impressive stats about app downloads etc. we given
• You can play farmville on your iPhone soon. Another nail in Flash’s coffin.
• Netflix is coming to the iPhone.
• Bing search was added to the iPhone.

So far the announcement has been a non-event for the stock which is down about in line with the market. This is what I expect to continue until sales numbers are announced at some point. The early upgrade option will really help numbers in my opinion. The only bad thing here is the end of AT&Ts unlimited plans because this iPhone is finally a serious competitor hardware wise to the other phones out there and will consume more data than ever before. This is the time for unlimited plans and caps much higher than 2GB. AT&T’s network has some suffering ahead.

Final conclusion – this should be a non-event for both stocks until some numbers are announced.

For more comments and discussion visit this post on Seeking Alpha

AT&T has ended unlimited data pricing on all devices including the iPad. The $30 unlimited plan has been replaced by the options of $15 for 200MB or $25 for 2GB. This may be good for AT&T in the short term but this is a long term negative for the consumer as data consumption is only growing as smartphone adoption increases. Also, Verizon is considering similar changes to their data plans. Already on most devices and plans, unlimited really meant 5GB.

Notable exceptions were AT&T’s plan for the iPad and Sprints upcoming 4G plan for the HTC EVO.

What does this really mean? It means that the HTC EVO seems a far superior choice than the new upcoming iPhone because Sprint’s plan is cheaper and unlimited. As it is Sprint’s plans have been better and cheaper than other carriers for a while but anybody who has experience with Sprint customer service a few years ago never wants to go back. After this change they might consider giving Sprint a second chance.

As a side effect (hoping for reduced data usage) of this AT&T expects to  introduce tethering for the iPhone at an extra $20 per month (without adding any more data, What?) to coincide with the launch of the new model. This has been a long time coming with promises of it ‘coming soon’ made three years ago when the original iPhone launched. US is the only country with tethering missing for the iPhone in the world. This should be have been an embarrassment for AT&T who also cannot get the phone to work right in major metros like New York.

Just a few days ago AT&T introduced new smartphone early termination fees. My assumption is that AT&T doesnt want a mass exodus to Verizon when a new iPhone launches on Verizon later this year or next year. But now I realized it also prevents people from defecting to Sprint when they get hit by data overages.

Final conclusion is that this is bad news for the consumer, not so good news for AT&T and Apple (especially in case of the iPad) and impending bad news for Verizon when they introduce tiered pricing themselves. The only winner here is Sprint. Maybe. AT&T claims that the tiers are based on what people actually use but I’m not sure I believe that and going forward as we start watching vidoes etc. on our phones and mobile devices – I’ve been using Youtube often on my phone – things are only going to get worse.

As for stock, if you can handle the risk buy Sprint. It has been on a roll after recent upgrades but if the first to 4G works out for them, the stock might to well. If you are less risky buy Verizon because over the long term they will get an iPhone. I’m not so sure about AT&T’s prospects if they lose their iPhone exclusivity and they will also be the last to market with 4G. Even the CEO says the people will not switch to other providers because they are locked in and not because AT&T will provide better service.

Disclosure: I own no stock in any wireless company. I do own Apple stock but no Apple products. I am happy with my Windows Mobile HTC Touch Pro which can be tethered and also has wifi hotspot.

If it was known that a relief well was the only solution that is 100% known to work, why was one not started on day 1 of the spill. We are now at Day 43. The work on a relief well has not even started as BP wastes time trying other stuff. If they would have started work on those on day 1 we would be nearing completion by now and if any of the failed attemts had worked, they could have just stopped work on the relief wells.

Is the Obama administration stupid? Is there not even one person on his team who thought of this?  For this one reason alone I would say that the Obama administration handled this disaster worse than Bush handled Katrina.

People are boycotting and buycotting Arizona in the thousands. I hope everybody just boycotts BP. They have a history of problems. Since the Alaska pipeline leak in  2006, America should have been investigating how to end their reliance on BP. At minimum they ahould have been watching BP more closely.

To add insult to injury, BP had another oil leak in its Alaskan pipeline a few days ago. No matter what the financial impact, the only responsible thing the government and everyone else can do is end all ties with BP. That may not be easy because BP is the largest supplier of fuel to the military but it is time to move on from the most reckless, irresponsible and harmful company on the planet to somebody else. Just boycott BP. This is one company that really company needs to die.

Investors, this is not a buy signal. The costs of this disaster are just begining. Two more months of oil leaks. Oil will hit other states. Lawsuits will pile on. BP has hard times ahead.