This week, Apple (AAPL) reported Quarterly results. Revenues up 11%, Profits down 18%, iPhone and iPad sales volumes both up significantly. This shows that AAPL is cutting prices to keep hardware delivery volumes up while lowering profits. But their gross profit margin for this quarter was 37.5% which is still excellent. Also AAPL increased their share buyback program by another $50 Billion and increased their dividend by 15% from 2.7% to 3.10%. These quarterly numbers drove their stock from a 52 week low last Friday of $385 to closing today at $417. Up $32 which is 8% in a week. Looks good to me.
Please remember to keep saving for retirement a little bit at a time. After 36 years of marriage, Tina and I can now look back at all the cigarettes we did not smoke, beer or Jack Daniels or Starbucks we did not drink, TV cable we never paid for, pool cleaning, home repairs and car repairs we did ourselves, and it all adds up to pretty big numbers when multiplied by 36 years. Assuming you spend $10 per week ($40 per month) on any one of these items, then multiply that $40 times 12 months times 36 years, each one of these becomes $17,280 saved. If you can eliminate 2 items instead of one, you are up to $34,560 saved over those 36 years. Then compound interest launches those savings. My favorite ViaSat 401K fund is PRGMX which paid an average annual return of greater than 5% over the past 25 years. That means a person earning $40,000 per year who put $40 per week ($2,080 per year) into PRGMX in a 401K for those 25 years would have a 401K worth $101,000 and if they also had a company match at 5%, the total 401K value would be $197,000. Wow!
These huge numbers are due to consistently saving only $40 per week and investing at a 5% return. Please see the attached spreadsheet to show you how this works. You can put in your own savings rate and age and see where your 401K should be at retirement time. This spreadsheet is also available at UltimateStockFinder.com on the Investment Training page.
At the Investment Links page at the bottom I have added a link "Today's Commodity Prices and 52 Week Lows". I do not want to take the risk level involved in trading commodities, but believe it is important to see where they are going in order to anticipate how commodity prices may affect various companies and their stock prices.
Next Monthly Meeting 2nd Tuesday of every Month:
Tuesday, May 14, 2013 , 7:30 PM at my house.
Here are my Buys for April 2013:
Buy Company Buy
Date Bought Price Target Sell
----- --------- ------ -------------
4/17 AAPL $410 Covered Call at $500
Here are my Sells for April 2013:
Sell Company Sell Buy Buy
Date Sold Price Price Date
------- ---------- ------- ------- ------------
4/17 PUT AAPL $40 Strike $370, Jan 2014
4/24 CALL STM $.25 Strike $10, Oct 2013
Bought STM @$5.50 in May 2012
StockEvaluator.xls and Mutual FundEvaluator.xls are available for download at www.ultimatestockfinder.com
Remember to send me any other stocks or mutual funds that you would like to see added to the Evaluator spreadsheets, and "Reply All" with any other investing ideas, information or questions that you want to share.
Thanks,
John D.
____________________________________________________________________
Visit Our Website UltimateStockFinder.com for More Investing Ideas:
All the Yahoo!Finance data is refreshed on Saturday morning into StockEvaluator.xls and contains over 1,900 company stocks. We will add any company you would like to the list. Download "StockEvaluator.xls spreadsheet" at: http://www.ultimatestockfinder.com/
MutualFundEvaluator.xls is also updated weekly and currently contains over 500 mutual funds.
Run the various Ctrl-_ sort commands in StockEvaluator.xls and MutualFundEvaluator.xls to bring the best companies to the top based on their key financial values.
Under "Web Search Links" you can find our favorite links for good investing information including:
Screener for New 52 week lows
Screener for Good Fundamental Values
Screener for Stocks with High Volatility
CNN links that show current P/E values for the major worldwide indexes.
Under "Downloads" you can access other Ultimate Stock Finder investing tools:
Download StockEvaluator.xls and MutualFundEvaluator.xls spreadsheets
View our YouTube training video
See "Investment Training Webpage", for more information on how we do our investments.
See "S&P 500 Total Return Comparison" spreadsheet for 20 year comparisons of many funds
View the Ultimate Stock Finder watchlist on Yahoo Finance
