There is probably not another company, and thus stock, that I have spent more time thinking about over the last 10 years of my career and as a consumer than AAPL. There is the very obvious likelihood that if Steve Jobs did not come back to AAPL in the late 1990s, this would not have been the case and we might have never had the dramatic leap forward in personal computing that we have seen in the very short recent history. Jobs was a true original and an amazing visionary and in many ways there are few people that were on this planet in the last 100 years who have positively affected so many people……
AAPL is a way of life in my household, from general communication, computers, music, video, books, calendars, email, wifi, TV, portable media and other ways that I am not thinking of, and this will only grow. My kids will likely know nothing other when it comes to their digital life and for that fact alone this is one of the most amazing ecosystems the world has ever known, with loyalty unmatched by any brand the world has ever seen.
As for the stock, I have been saying this on this site for some time now, the next few years are likely to be far more challenging than the last few…..as products/categories like the iPhone/iPad mature and become commoditized, and products like the iMac/Macbook and the iPod become cannibalized this company will face amazing pressure from investors and Wall Street to continue to innovate at the pace of the last 5 years which in my opinion without Jobs may be close to impossible.
Near Term I think if the stock is sold on this news you BUY it into fiscal Q4 earnings to be released Oct 18th. Since selling my weekly Put Spread following the iPhone 4S announcement I have been looking at different structures and waiting for the right moment to buy Oct Call Spreads. I Think you want to define your risk in names like this and specifically in a market like this…..check back later for a new Trade in AAPL.
As for Jobs, I don’t think there has been another person that I have known or known of in my lifetime, who I knew so little about, that I had some much admiration for.