Billionaire Investor Carl Icahn Sells Entire Stake In Apple (theguardian.com) 127
An anonymous reader writes: Billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn said he has sold his entire stake in Apple, citing the risk of China's influence on the stock. The report comes after Apple announced its first earnings decline in more than a decade, where Apple's revenue is dropping 26% year-over-year. Icahn is concerned with the barriers to trade that China's authoritarian regime might put in place. Icahn said he wasn't concerned with interference so much with the country's "relationship" with Apple. "The thing that I'm worried about here in China doesn't affect the whole market. I'm not talking about China's economic status right now. I'm talking about, could the thing with Apple escalate a little bit? And if that does, what does that mean to Apple's profits during the interim?" Icahn acquired a stake in the company almost three years ago, calling the investment a "no brainer." What caused him to sell his 45.8 million Apple shares (priced at $240 a share) was China's economic slowdown and worries about how China could become more prohibitive in doing business.
Re: Buy Low, Sell High (Score:1)
I think that would be manipulating the market for profit and I believe it's illegal... not sure maybe someone else can chime in
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As they [Lurch] said in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: "RULES???!!!??? In a knife fight???"
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Goldman Sachs does this several times a minute every minute of every trading day.
Several times a millisecond.
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When you do it above the table, so everyone can see, its not illegal.
Its illegal to orchestrate the sell of stocks for that purpose in a hidden manner as such that it looks like the public confidence in the stock has plummeted rather than your own personal feelings.
He can do anything he wants to wreck Apples stock price more or less as long as its out in the open, public, with essentially no hidden agenda.
Thats not entirely true of course, there are limitations, but what he isn't breaking any of them by com
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If he secretly convinced a bunch of other people to sell without announcing that it was a group decision, just so he could bottom the price and rebuy himself ... thats illegal as shit.
That's not really a very good metaphor. Shit is quite legal in the US and most of the world. The plant nurseries hereabouts are now in full Spring-planting mode, and that includes selling sacks of cattle manure, both raw (dried and ground to a coarse sand) and composted (with the consistency of topsoil). It's fully legal, and good stuff for your garden.
So maybe we should find a more accurate X to use in phrases like "... as X", something that is at least somewhat illegal. ;-)
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I think that would be manipulating the market for profit and I believe it's illegal... not sure maybe someone else can chime in
You may be right, if tomorrow, following that industry response, the market price of Apple drops and he immediately buys back in.
Or, the handwriting is on the wall, the market for smart phones is filled, Future sales will be replacement units for ones that have failed. Even further, when the governments worldwide stipulate that the battery must be replaceable without distroying the phone, the next drop in sales will follow.
In my view, Android will win the entire market place, or the operating system from S
Anything wrong? (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's say what you have suggested happens, that Carl Icahn makes another trillion dollars shorting Apple stock and then buy back at super low price
Let me ask you this --- is there anything wrong with what he does?
After all, this is the FREE MARKET --- If you get to do whatever you want with your own money, Mr. Icahn should have the same right and use his money the way he sees fit
Now, don't tell me about that bullshi 1% thing
They get to be 1% because they use their brain, and if you can't be amongst the 1%,
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Under Mr. Jobs, Apple went from one product to another --- from Apple to Mac to iPod to iPhone to iPad, --- and under Cook, what kind of new product Apple has come out with?
You forgot: Under Cook, Apple was the first company to make a smartwatch.
(/sarcasm)
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It is funny how while Jobs was alive, he was apparently nothing more than a marketing charlatan, but once he was gone, Apple was doomed without his innovative genius.
Re: Anything wrong? (Score:1)
Were you around in 1977? You could very well make the argument that they sold the first personal computer. At that time everything else was a kit.
Re: Anything wrong? (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple have never been the first with any of those, innovative no, well designed and well marketed, yes
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It is funny how while Jobs was alive, he was apparently nothing more than a marketing charlatan, but once he was gone, Apple was doomed without his innovative genius.
That's odd, because I recall the mass media generally treating Jobs as a borderline-messiah/genius figure synonymous with Apple when he *was* alive. I also recall a significant number of people making claims that Apple's success was primarily down to marketing even then.
What I don't see is any significant change en masse of those attitudes since he died.
The only thing I noticed- if anything- is that since his death, the fact that Jobs was a borderline sociopathic asshole at a personal level seems to hav
Re: Anything wrong? (Score:1)
I have $2000 in my bank account to buy a Mac Book Pro. The current model is over a year old. If they don't update the specs soon, then I'm going to have to buy a Windows laptop.
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You forgot: Under Cook, Apple was the first company to make a smartwatch.
Actually it was not.
There were plenty of SmartWatchs out that connected to iPhones or Android phones before Apple came up with its version.
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All Ayn Rand disciples built the log cabins they were born in.
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All Ayn Rand disciples built the log cabins they were born in.
Ah, but did they make the tools (saws, hammers, nails, etc.) used to build their log cabins? Did they mine and smelt the steel to make those tools? If not, they they still took advantage of the education and labor of earlier people. ;-)
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As a devil's advocate, I'd not want to say that... Sometimes the Icahns are the ones that create the Musks and Jobs. Someone has to give the unicorns their ten digits to get out the starting gate.
As for Rand, what a dreary world she portrays. Wonder if her ideal would be the US in the 1890s-1920s, where there were zero taxes, other than in imports, just whispering "union" meant being blacklisted, and a nice form of serfdom. I really wouldn't jump for joy living in Sinclair's "The Jungle", although I'd de
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Let's say what you have suggested happens, that Carl Icahn makes another trillion dollars shorting Apple stock and then buy back at super low price
Let me ask you this --- is there anything wrong with what he does?
Yes. Given you post history I'd doubt you would understand why even if I spell it out for you so I'll refrain from that.
After all, this is the FREE MARKET --- If you get to do whatever you want with your own money, Mr. Icahn should have the same right and use his money the way he sees fit
The idea of the free market is an artificial construct that can't work in the real world. And even IF it was possible we don't have a free market currently.
Now, don't tell me about that bullshi 1% thing
They get to be 1% because they use their brain, and if you can't be amongst the 1%, hey, don't blame them, blame yourself for being too lazy to use YOUR brain
Bullshit! You may think that but of the people using their brains most never get close to rich - that's not how the world works. The very rich are because they had a lot of money to start with and create more money.
And here we return to
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If you really think Icahn is dumping the stock so that it plunges and he can buy it back at a discount and watch it rise again, you're certainly free to do the exact same thing - that is, buy it after your predicted fall happens, and then sell it rises again. That's if you really think that's what's going on.
The truth is, the stock ticked downward a touch, just over 1%, after the news of the Icahn move, but that was nothing compared to how much it went down earlier in the week on their reduced revenue news.
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"Carl Icahn has a point in saying Apple's over reliance on China"
Except that's always been true for everyone. There no new information, and nothing specific to Apple.
As I have said elsewhere, if Icahn is out then I know Apple is okay. He's proof that it is smarter to be lucky than it is lucky to be smart.
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Let's say what you have suggested happens, that Carl Icahn makes another trillion dollars shorting Apple stock and then buy back at super low price
Well, if he makes another trillion for his to use, have you ever thought, where this money is coming from, like who is creating it? Is it just getting printed and it's there for somebody to get picked up or is there some other end where that green stuff gets less or how does this work?
There is this thought about how many "normal" people have to work to make money in a Company/Organisation to pay a CEO?
Haven't found an answer to this yet.
Let me ask you this --- is there anything wrong with what he does?
After all, this is the FREE MARKET --- If you get to do whatever you want with your own money, Mr. Icahn should have the same right and use his money the way he sees fit
Yeah, this FM-Religion/Believe-System... Is that "Freedom" really work
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Agenda for a New Economy [amazon.com] covers the issues of what the author calls "phantom wealth".
It's an excellent read and I highly recommend it.
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According to NYT, Icahn is worth about $20 Billion. He's more or less a leech and tried to get Apple to make several stupid moves. If he's sold Apple, is it because he thinks he can make more somewhere else. And he's just come out for Trump. Trump claims to be worth $10 Billion. Given his long distance relationship with truth, I'd guess it is closer to $1 Billion or below.
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Well, if he makes another trillion for his to use, have you ever thought, where this money is coming from, like who is creating it? Is it just getting printed and it's there for somebody to get picked up or is there some other end where that green stuff gets less or how does this work?
Buying stocks, selling them, short or not, does not create money.
Money is "created" via loans. Nothing else. There is not even need to print any extra money.
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"If the parents are smart, they'd ..."
So you do agree with no-body.
Re: Anything wrong? (Score:2)
So exactly which market should Apple get into that even has a chance to be one fourth the size of the smart phone market?
Which electronics company is being innovative?
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Virtual reality, Augmented reality, etc.
Imagine sitting at home in your living room and it transforms into a (place in a) stadium, watching a famous football game and your friends with similar hardware sitting in their own living room are sitting right besides you.
Real stadium visitors in front and farer around of you.
That was an obvious idea 20 -15 years ago, but no one builds it. Perhaps Apple is the first one.
The "technology" we have, just not the "product".
Would be like a Skype conversation or iChat co
Re: Anything wrong? (Score:2)
And what's the addressable market and the replacement rate? Even before the iPhone came out the phone market was huge and obviously growing.
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People buy yards wide TVs meanwhile ... why would they not buy a home entertaining VR "room".
Re: Anything wrong? (Score:2)
How many people buy yard long tvs? What's the profit margin on televisions (very slim). What's the replacement cycle for tvs (7-8 years). Now put all that together does that sound like a profitable business?
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No idea to all of this.
I have no TV at all.
But walking through the streets of my town I regularly see at night huge TVs
Re: Anything wrong? (Score:2)
That's not the point. in Western countries at least, in a typical middle class family each family member over 13 probably has a phone and it's replaced like every two years. Why would VR be anymore successful than 3D tvs?
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Because for starters: no one wants a 3D TV. And for the idiots making 3D videos: it makes no sense to exaggerate 3D impressions just to be able to print 3D on the cover. We live in a 3D environment. We hardly realize it is 3D, and we hardly realize if we something 2D like a flat screen of a laptop. 3D effects in movies are: "look we do 3D" and actually hurt the eyes and the brain. Hurt as in pain, not as in damage.
When I go with friends into the cinema we always chose the non 3D version. For various reasons
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They get to be 1% because they use their brain, and if you can't be amongst the 1%, hey, don't blame them, blame yourself for being too lazy to use YOUR brain
Now that's pure unadulterated bullshit. 1% made their money because they had plenty of starting capital and because they are all connected to each other. So they can influence a lot of things in their favor, they get a lot of information that the rest of the public either never gets, or gets too late, and they can quickly accomplish a lot of things via their connections with a simple phone call. Yes, you have to be smart to get even near the top 1%, but brains by far is not the only requirement.
As
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Let me ask you this --- is there anything wrong with what he does?
After all, this is the FREE MARKET --- If you get to do whatever you want with your own money, Mr. Icahn should have the same right and use his money the way he sees fit
No one has the right to bankrupt someone else just because he is using his money in a clever way.
However I agree with the rest of your post.
I'm not buying any iPhones or iPads anymore unless they are back to iPhone 3/4 level of UI and interaction. The new stuff is just bolloc
Re:Buy Low, Sell High (Score:4, Insightful)
I doubt he would care to do that, because Apple's stock probably won't increase any time soon. The reason Apple saw a YoY revenue decline is because of the so called "peak iphone", and presently 65% of Apple's revenue comes from guess what. Unless by some miracle Apple can reproduce the same growth they've had in the last 10 years (smartphone market is now matured and saturated and is now starting to go through what the PC market is going through, so good luck with that) their stock is only going to decline for the foreseeable future. So yeah, it's a good time to get out of Apple.
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I doubt he would care to do that, because Apple's stock probably won't increase any time soon. The reason Apple saw a YoY revenue decline is because of the so called "peak iphone", and presently 65% of Apple's revenue comes from guess what. Unless by some miracle Apple can reproduce the same growth they've had in the last 10 years (smartphone market is now matured and saturated and is now starting to go through what the PC market is going through, so good luck with that) their stock is only going to decline for the foreseeable future. So yeah, it's a good time to get out of Apple.
You realize your call of "peak iphone" has been called before like about a hundred times. Is it going to be a rough quarter for Apple? Sure. But I really really doubt it's the beginning of the end...
Re: Buy Low, Sell High (Score:2, Informative)
Apple's revenue declined for the first time in it's iphone history. It was mainly due to iphone6 being immensely successful. iPhone 6 revenue grew about 30% compared to previous year. You can't maintain that kind of growth every year. Even this quarter's declined revenue is better than what they earned two years ago.
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You forgot to call Apple "beleaguered" and suggest that to Dell should buy them out so as to shut everything down and refund the money to the shareholders.
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The thing I don't get is how all of Wall Street, the investing community in general, and all of corporate America as a whole aren't on to his game. I'm basicaly penny-ante as an investor, and I know that Ichan is a steaming sack of shit, that every word that he spews from his noise hole is a lie and part of a scheme to manipulate the market and damage a company for his own short-term gain and to hell with anyone and everyone else, and that if he ever takes any interest in a company that company should do t
Good Riddance? (Score:1, Interesting)
I'm not sure that anything good will come of looting the company, so this may be for the best.
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Apple doesn't have anywhere near enough capital to go private, and I doubt they're going be able to borrow more because they already have a lot of debt. Their stock would have to seriously decline first.
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Maybe the recent quarter's results are due to Apple intentionally reducing their profits in order to depress the stock for the purpose of buying it back?
</tinfoil_hat>
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Apple's profits are still up, only their sales are down.
Basically icahn realized he can never get his hands on Apple's cash pile. Just like he tried to get his hands on Dell's cash, etc.
To sum up. I can sees a public company with lots of cash on hand as a cash machine. he invests into the company to the point he can push his agenda, his agenda includes taking on massive debt and giving the cash to the shareholders(like him), and then because of the massive debt the company collapses , long after he has c
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What does MAC stand for?
Re:Good Riddance? (Score:4, Interesting)
Unless you're legitimately talking about a level 2 network, it's the snarky asshat way of typing Mac, of course. Feign ignorance of the correct nomenclature in order to demonstrate that the product is beneath your notice, and all that. The same sort of people would type Lunix instead of Linux, WinDOS instead of Windows, claim that Windows phones still run on Win CE, call the Apple Watch an iWatch, and of course, type Micro$oft or Crapple.
Basically, it's juvenile name-calling and a sign that the poster is best ignored and/or down-modded.
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Yeah, but are his numbers close?
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Apple's profits are still up, only their sales are down.
No, profits are way down. Year-to-year from $13.6 billion to $10.5 billion or down 23%. Sequentially from $18.4 billion to $10.5 billion or down 43%.
Much more worrying than the one-quarter blip is the year-to-year revenue growth trend, which has trended down for the past three quarters and is likely to be down the next quarter. On the heels of the first ever year-to-year revenue drop, the next quarter is also projected to be negative.
No, Apple is not going out of business, but it's looking mortal. It's
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Actually, Apple doesn't have a lot of debt. In fact, the only reason they have debt is because it's cheaper to borrow the money than repatriate it. The interest rate on that money is around 1-2%. If they repatriated that cash, they would lose 40% of it to Uncle Sam.
240$/share? (Score:1)
Where'd that number come from?
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They may be preferred shares, or perhaps he had a position on them.
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Slashdot interface weirdness (Score:1)
Did anyone else see this story looking muted for awhile [imgur.com]?
I'm used to the occasional glitch where, even as a non-subscriber, I sometimes see stories in advance and highlighted in red. But this was something different, it's like the story itself got caught inside the advertisement. There was no way to click into the story and the "X" didn't do anything. Using Firefox on Windows. Sunspots!
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It normally means a raider of the lost corporate ark is eminent.
Stop calling him an activist investor (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a name he and his PR people have made up because it sounds cool. He's a corporate raider: He buys successful companies on a heavily leveraged position, transfers all the debt to them, sells off their assets, and then leaves them to die. He tried to do it with Dell, but failed thankfully.
Re:Stop calling him an activist investor (Score:5, Insightful)
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*shrug* Sounds like normal corporate america to me... my experience is that *all* the players are like that. And that is why the country is in the shitter. Hey, its the American way.
He's 80 years old (Score:1)
He'll be dead soon, and he'll never have time or health enough to spend even a tiny penny of his money.
So all the companies he's screwed over will get the last laugh.
I particularly remember the scumbags tricks to damage. He pretended to be an investor (he actually held options instead), he drove the shareprice down from $17 to $12/share. He lied pretending the Microsoft offer was worth $20/share, it was actually worth $8/share (a loan is not income Carl).
Microsoft's deal included buying a portion of shares
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Loans are not income, therefore they are not taxed :D maybe that was his thinking?
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Also Bill Ackman's M.O. Usually it involves firing a shitload of staff, hiring a handful of cheap, offshore replacements, and watching the stock temporarily shoot higher as a result of the cost cutting. Never mind 5 years down the road the company is a shambles, or the safety issues that arise from fewer people doing more work in dangerous jobs.
Well, it's time to create another rating agency that monitors long-term health like outsourcing staff, cutting QA, etc and publishes ratings accordingly.
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Other news at Apple... (Score:4, Interesting)
This has been an incredibly difficult week for Apple. The company shed more than $40 billion in market capitalization on Tuesday evening following its fiscal first-quarter earnings report, which showed a much steeper decline than Wall Street was expecting in both profit and iPhone sales. Then, just one day later, tragedy struck Apple's Cupertino, California headquarters when one of the company's employees was found dead in a conference room on campus.
http://bgr.com/2016/04/29/apple-suicide-cupertino-campus-recap/ [bgr.com]
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Do you live in some shithole that has metal detectors at every office building or something?
What about all the knives in the building for people just having lunch?
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Can you just walk into the office with a gun in America?
Most of the time. Corporate headquarters tend to have metal detectors in the main entrance as the general public is regarded as a potential security threat. Employee entrances that are accessible by key card don't have metal detectors. Nothing prevents a determined employee from packing heat and going postal on the job.
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It's against most corporations' policies to have a gun in the workplace, but I have yet to see one with a metal detector at the entrance to normal office space.
The corporate headquarters for eBay in North San Jose has revolving doors, metal detectors, armed security guards and patrol dogs at the main entrance, which is open to the public during regular business hours. Angry customers and users storming the barricades with torches and pitchforks was always a serious possibility while working there. At other eBay campuses, the security is what you would expect for a typical office building or campus.
I like that (Score:3)
Year-over-year? (Score:2, Interesting)
br Makes it sound like they've been declining for several years. They've had their first dip in revenue in 13 years - I think it's a bit early to say if that represents a 26% decline "year over year" or whether it's just a blip. But hey, let's all get on the whole "Apple is doomed!" bandwagon all over again. What is this, the 1990s?
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"Year-over-year" is just financial jargon and has a specific meaning in that context.
it is rather absurd to base an argument by taking alleged literal meaning over jargon meaning.
what next? for example, when you read word 'trojan' here, do you expect to see hector or his ilk? or do you expect the legendary greek wooden horse that tricked the trojans?
btw if you are so confident about apple and think you know better than icahn and other investors, all you have to do is to take a long position( and i don't mea
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You're taking it wrong. Y/Y means the same quarter of a year ago, rather than the previous quarter. The reason for doing this is to remove seasonal biases from the comparison.
there is a place in nature for hyenas.. (Score:2)
..and there's a place in the free market place for icahns.
Come on, Carl! (Score:3)
Don't judge all Apple software by iTunes.
Name change (Score:2)
iCahn't
What if Android is overtaking iOS in phones? (Score:1)
For those who did not know: iPhones sales account for 60% of Apple revenue, and 80% of Apple profit. As iPhones go, so goes Apple. Everything else is nearly irrelevant.
What if Android is overtaking iOS in phones, in the same way that Windows overtook MacOS in PCs? For those who don't remember: Apple nearly went bankrupt in the 1990s.
Apple had the same philosophy with PCs in the 1990s that Apple has now with smart phones: super high margins, everything proprietary. Apple expects to be worshiped to the point
smart plan (Score:2)
And the Chinese gov is putting up more and more tariffs.
It is for this reason that I hope that Tesla will NOT put their best prizes over there just to gain a few $ more in sales.