appleconomics.com and full analysis on Apple’s current set up for traders and investors

As I’d noted last week, I’m going to be giving a speech at the “Apple Investor Summit” in LA in mid March. You can go here for more details.

I’ve also recently built appleconomics.com (tagline: Everything you need to know about Apple and its impact on your world) as a new addition to my network of sites and you guys can get a sneak preview of it today.  It’s a news aggregator, social network, and community of Apple investors and product users. On appleconomics.com you’ll find news and analysis about Apple, its stock, its labor practices and other controversies, rumors, product reviews, open forum discussions and much more.  There are no featured writers on appleconomics.com which means that it’s totally free and open to the everyone, so be sure to check it out.

In the meantime, let’s talk about Apple here for a minute once again, as it’s still our biggest position and there’s a whole lot of cross currents around this company and stock right now.

First, the good:

• Apple’s still one of the cheapest stocks in the market and it’s still one of the fastest growing stocks in the market. That’s been true of this stock even as it has rallied 7100% since I first flagged it for you guys.
• The iPad 3 is coming and it’s going to be huge-huger than either of the prior iPad 1 or 2. Notice how the iPhone 4S has outsold every other version of the other, also wildly successful past iPhone models? Same will be true with iPad 3 and iPad 4. And that’s going to be a huge growth driver for the top and bottom line for Apple.
• The iPhone 5 is coming and it’s going to be huge-huger than any of the prior iPhones…see the above bullet point.
• Cash. I first bought Apple at $7 a share back in March 2003 in large part because the company even at that time, was “cash heavy” with $8 per share net cash. They now have about $100 per share in net cash on the balance sheet. Up from $8 a decade ago. Bet they issue a dividend sometime this year or next. That’ll bring in a whole other class of mutual fund and professional managers who have to buy dividend stocks. That’d be a great combo — Apple a 2% dividend yielder and growing faster than any other big cap.
• Mac. Mac’s and Apple PC market share can double and triple and it’d still be a small fraction of the overall PC market.

Second, the bad:

• The stock has been on a tear of late, running from $450 to $525 in a straight line before recently reversing intraday. Now hanging around $500 a share, I wouldn’t be shocked to see this stock bide some time for a while or even fade a bit to bring out the bears and shake out the weak-handed momentum guys who piled in lately.
• Is the market already expecting a big dividend coming from Apple and now if Apple doesn’t give up signs of a coming dividend of decent-size, will the market punish the stock temporarily?
• Trademark rulings? Seems like every day there’s a new headline about Samsung, Apple, HTC, RIMM, Microsoft and everybody else getting some favorable or hurtful ruling in some court somewhere on the planet. None of these lawsuits have mattered, but again as in the above bullet point — the time to worry about these lawsuits and injunctions and infringements and all that is now, not when they actually matter.

Third, the ugly:

• Labor issues. Labor issues. Labor issues.
• Apple backlash continues to build. Sure hasn’t affected sales or the stock yet, but that’s the time to worry about it — not when the backlash is already here and its too late to shift.

I think Apple is indeed headed to $1000 by 2015, as I’ve been saying for a long time now. Doesn’t mean it will go straight up along the way though. Easy does it for now. This is one that yes, we should buy on weakness as the business and stock are still set up about as good as they can get for the mid- and longer-terms.Thoughts and feedback on Apple and our new appleconomics.com site are welcome.