AAPL - Apple Inc.
| Previous Close | 271.46 |
| Open | 271.46 |
| Bid | 275.26 x 1200 |
| Ask | 275.33 x 1800 |
| Day's Range | 270.93 - 275.30 |
| 52 Week Range | 142.00 - 275.30 |
| Volume | 33,432,806 |
| Avg. Volume | 24,827,453 |
| Market Cap | 1.2T |
| Beta (5Y Monthly) | 1.23 |
| PE Ratio (TTM) | 23.14 |
| EPS (TTM) | 11.89 |
| Earnings Date | Jan 27, 2020 - Jan 31, 2020 |
| Forward Dividend & Yield | 3.08 (1.13%) |
| Ex-Dividend Date | 2019-11-07 |
| 1y Target Est | 262.85 |
- Bloomberg
Apple Could Hit $325 a Share in Next Year, Says Ives of Wedbush
Dec.13 -- Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives and Bloomberg's Alistair Barr talk about how Apple will be impacted by the U.S. trade war deal with China. They appear on "Bloomberg Technology."
- Yahoo Finance
'Dumbgood' revives 'cross-generational' appeal with Blockbuster themed pop-up
Streetwear brand Dumbgood is capitalizing on the rise in pop culture's nostalgia for the 1990s.
- MarketWatch
Americans keep gorging on debt, thanks to the Federal Reserve
Even only a slight increase in interest rates creates millions more in interest payments for consumers.
- Bloomberg
Google Culture War Escalates as Era of Transparency Wanes
(Bloomberg) -- Each morning, workers at Google get an internal newsletter called the “Daily Insider.” Kent Walker, Google’s top lawyer, set off a firestorm when he argued in the Nov. 14 edition that the 21-year old company had outgrown its policy of allowing workers to access nearly any internal document. “When we were smaller, we all worked as one team, on one product, and everyone understood how business decisions were made,” Walker wrote. “It's harder to give a company of over 100,000 people the full context on everything.”Many large companies have policies restricting access to sensitive information to a “need-to-know” basis. But in some segments of Google’s workforce, the reaction to Walker’s argument was immediate and harsh. On an internal messaging forum, one employee described the data policy as “a total collapse of Google culture.” An engineering manager posted a lengthy attack on Walker’s note, which he called "arrogant and infantilizing." The need-to-know policy "denies us a form of trust and respect that is again an important part of the intrinsic motivation to work here,” the manager wrote.The complaining also spilled into direct action. A group of Google programmers created a tool that allowed employees to choose to alert Walker with an automated email every time they opened any document at all, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. The deluge of notifications was meant as a protest to what they saw as Walker’s insistence on controlling the minutiae of their professional lives. “When it comes to data security policies, we’ve never intended to prevent employees from sharing technical learnings and information and we are not limiting anyone’s ability to raise concerns or debate the company’s activities,” said a Google spokeswoman in an email. “We have a responsibility to safeguard our user, business and customer information and these activities need to be done in line with our policies on data security.” The actions are just the latest chapter in an internal conflict that has been going on for almost two years. About 20,000 employees walked out last fall over the company’s generous treatment of executives accused of sexual harassment, and a handful quit over Google’s work on products for the U.S. military and a censored search engine for the Chinese market. Earlier this year, Google hired IRI Consultants, a firm that advises employers on how to combat labor organizing, and it recently fired four employees for what it said was violation of its policies on accessing sensitive data.The extent of Google’s employee rebellion is hard to measure—the company has tried to portray it as the work of a handful of malcontents from the company’s junior ranks. Nor are the company’s message boards unilaterally supportive of revolt. “We want to focus on our jobs when we come into the workplace rather than deal with a new cycle of outrage every few days or vote on petitions for or against Google’s latest project,” wrote one employee on an internal message board viewed by Bloomberg News. Still, the company seems stuck in a cycle of escalation. Walker’s internal critics say his Nov. 14 email is part of a broader erosion of one of Google’s most distinctive traits—its extreme internal transparency. The fight also illustrates the lack of trust between Google’s leadership and some of its employees, according to interviews with over a dozen current and former employees, as well as internal messages shared with Bloomberg News on the condition it not publish the names of employees who participated.The conflict comes as Google is changing in other ways, too. On Dec. 3, Sundar Pichai, who took over as Google’s chief executive office in 2015, became the head of Alphabet, its parent company. His elevation marks the end of the active involvement of Sergey Brin and Larry Page, who established Google’s distinctive culture when they founded the company as Stanford graduate students. Pichai has at times supported internal activism. He spoke at an employee protest against the Trump administration’s immigration policies and apologized to employees for Google’s track record on sexual harassment. His executives met repeatedly with critics of the company’s military work. Some Google managers began signaling that they're losing patience with internal activism even before the firings, according to one person who worked with them. Executives have not met with dissenting staff leadership in many weeks, according to one of the employees.While Walker wrote in the “Daily Insider” that organizations have to change as they grow, he simultaneously argued that the policies he described had always existed. “It was that way since the early days of Google, and it’s that way now,” he wrote. This particularly offended several long-time Googlers, who said on internal message boards that Walker’s comments didn’t square with their own memories. For some of them, the incident illustrated a broader breakdown in their trust of leadership. “I want to believe that executive management is saying everything—disclosing the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth,” said Bruce Hahne, a Google technical project manager. “I don’t think we are currently under those conditions.”Hahne, 51, doesn’t meet the Google management’s profile of internal protestors. He joined the company in 2005, a year after Pichai, partly because he was attracted to its mission to organize the world’s information. His disillusionment crept in gradually during the company’s myriad controversies. In an online essay, Hahne compared Google to a “rogue machine” that was “originally created for good but whose psyche has turned corrupt and destructive,” much like Hal 9000 from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. “You don’t treat a rogue machine like family,” wrote Hahne, “instead you come up with a plan, you disable or dismantle the dysfunctional parts of the machine, and you seek to reprogram the machine to serve its original purpose.” When it was founded two decades ago, Google established an unusual corporate practice. Nearly all of its internal documents were widely available for workers to review. A programmer working on Google search could for instance, dip into the software scaffolding of Google Maps to crib some elegant block of code to fix a bug or replicate a feature. Employees also had access to notes taken during brainstorming sessions, candid project evaluations, computer design documents, and strategic business plans. (The openness doesn’t apply to sensitive data such as user information.)The idea came from open-source software development, where the broader programming community collaborates to create code by making it freely available to anyone with ideas to alter and improve it. The philosophy came with technical advantages. “That interconnected way of working is an integral part of what got Google to where it is now,” said John Spong, a software engineer who worked at Google until this July.Google has flaunted its openness as a recruiting tool and public relations tactic as recently as 2015. "As for transparency, it’s part of everything we do," Laszlo Bock, then the head of Google human relations, said in an interview that year. He cited the immediate access staff have to software documentation, and said employees "have an obligation to make their voices heard."Google’s open systems also proved valuable for activists within the company, who have examined its systems for evidence of controversial product developments and then circulated their findings among colleagues. Such investigations have been integral to campaigns against the projects for the Pentagon and China. Some people involved in this research refer to it as "internal journalism."Management would describe it differently. In November, Google fired four engineers who it said had been carrying out “systematic searches for other employees’ materials and work. This includes searching for, accessing, and distributing business information outside the scope of their jobs.” The engineers said they were active in an internal campaign against Google’s work with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and denied violating the company’s data security policies.Rebecca Rivers, one of the fired employees, said she initially logged into Google’s intranet, a web portal open to all staff, and typed the terms: “CBP” and “GCP,” for Google Cloud Platform. “That’s how simple it was,” she said. “Anyone could have stumbled onto it easily,” she said.In an internal email describing the firings, Google accused one employee of tracking a colleague’s calendar without permission, gathering information about both personal and professional appointments in a way that made the targeted employee feel uncomfortable. Laurence Berland, one of the employees who was fired recently, acknowledged he had accessed internal calendars, but said they were not private. He used them to confirm his suspicions that the company was censoring employees. Berland, who first joined Google in 2005, added that he felt the company was punishing him for breaking a rule that didn’t exist at the time of the alleged violations. Google declined to identify the four employees it fired, but a company spokeswoman said the person who tracked calendars accessed unauthorized information.Other employees say they are now afraid to click on certain documents from other teams or departments because they are worried they could later be disciplined for doing so, a fear the company says is unfounded. Some workers have interpreted the policies as an attempt to stifle criticism of particular projects, which they allege amounts to a violation of the company’s code of conduct. These employees point to a clause in the code that actively encourages dissent: “Don’t be evil, and if you see something that you think isn’t right—speak up!” Workers are "trying to report internally on problematic situations, and in some cases are not being allowed to make that information useful and accessible,” said Hahne. There is now a “climate of fear” inside Google offices, he said.Google’s permissive workplace culture became the prime example of Silicon Valley’s brand of employment. But transparency is hardly universal. Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. demand that workers operate in rigid silos to keep the details of sensitive projects from leaking to competitors. Engineers building a phone’s camera may have no idea what the people building its operating system are doing, and vice versa. Similar restrictions are common at government contractors and other companies working with clients who demand discretion.The specifics of Google’s business operations traditionally haven’t required this level of secrecy, but that is changing. Google’s cloud business in particular requires it to convince business clients it can handle sensitive data and work on discrete projects. This has brought it more in line with its secrecy-minded competitors. The protests themselves have also inspired new restrictions, as executives have looked to cut off the tools of the activists it argues are operating in bad faith.Google’s leaders have acknowledged the delicacy of adjusting a culture that has entrenched itself over two decades. “Employees today are much, much more active in the governance in the company,” Eric Schmidt, Google’s former CEO and chair, said at an event at Stanford University in October. Amy Edmonson, a professor of leadership and management at Harvard Business School, said that Google’s idealistic history increases the burden on its executives to bring along reluctant employees as it adopts more conventional corporate practices. “It’s just really important that if you’re going to do something that is perceived as change that you’re going to explain it,” she said.Bock, the company’s former HR director who is now CEO of Humu, a workplace software startup, suggested that Google hasn’t succeeded here. “Maybe Alphabet is just a different company than it used to be,” he wrote in an email to Bloomberg News. “But not everyone’s gotten the memo.” (Corrects Berland comment in 19th paragraph.)\--With assistance from Josh Eidelson.To contact the authors of this story: Ryan Gallagher in London at rgallagher76@bloomberg.netMark Bergen in San Francisco at mbergen10@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Joshua Brustein at jbrustein@bloomberg.netFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- MarketWatch
Trump didn’t win Time’s ‘Person of the Year,’ so he mocks the teen who did
Donald Trump supporters were left aghast — shocked! — last week when Professor Pamela Karlan had the nerve to wise crack about the president’s young son, Barron, during the impeachment hearing. After all, he’s just a kid. Greta Thunberg is also just a kid, but that didn’t stop Trump from roasting her on Twitter.
- Reuters
Google, Apple asked if apps like TikTok must disclose foreign ties
The chair of a U.S. congressional panel wrote to Alphabet's Google and to Apple on Friday to ask what if any disclosures mobile apps are required to make regarding overseas ties, a concern that follows reports of Chinese investment in popular apps such as TikTok and Grindr. Rep. Stephen Lynch, chairman of a subcommittee of the House of Representatives Oversight Committee, said in a statement that he had asked both Google and Apple to tell Congress whether they required app developers to disclose any non-U.S. ties. Concern over China acquiring sensitive data about U.S. citizens through social media apps is one of several sore areas in relations between the United States and China even as U.S. President Donald Trump's trade war with China fans suspicion between the world's two largest economies.
- Reuters
Wall Street Weekahead: Trade deal removes major hurdle for rally in Apple and tech
U.S. President Donald Trump's limited trade deal with China removes a major hurdle for Apple and other technology stocks that have already surged this year to record highs. China has agreed to boost imports of U.S. energy, pharmaceutical and agricultural products, although Chinese officials offered no details on the amount of U.S. goods Beijing had agreed to buy. If it is signed, Trump's long-awaited deal will be a relief to Apple, among the U.S. companies with the most to lose in the trade war between the world's two largest economies, along with chipmakers who make the components in its devices, which are mostly made in China.
- Financial Times
Huawei draws Hong Kong-style blowback
FT subscribers can click here to receive #techFT every day by email. Hong Kong protest tactics have come to mainland China. The spark? Huawei and the Chinese government’s alleged mistreatment of an ex-employee. ...
- GuruFocus.com
Leading US Indexes Close Higher Friday and for the Week of Dec. 13
S&P; 500 up 26.25% for the year Continue reading...
- GuruFocus.com
Top Technology Holdings of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway
Apple sets new record close as US and China reach trade deal Continue reading...
- Barrons.com
There’s a Trade Deal With China. Here’s Why the Stock Market Isn’t Thrilled.
The U.S. and China say they have a “phase one” trade agreement, a positive for the global economy. But details were scarce and the deal hasn’t been signed, which means trade issues could continue to rattle markets.
- Benzinga
Apple Averted An iPhone Fiasco With Phase 1 Trade Deal
Stocks with significant exposure to China have been see-sawing amid conflicting reports concerning a resolution. With some clarity emerging with the clinching of a Phase 1 deal between the U.S. and China, the broader market and these stocks are likely to get a reprieve. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), which is reliant on China both as a production base and market for its products, is feeling the pinch, although the stock hasn't reacted much to the uncertainty.
- MarketWatch
Dow flat in spite of gains for shares of American Express, Visa
DOW UPDATE Shares of American Express and Visa are seeing strong returns Friday afternoon, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average into positive territory. The Dow (DJIA) was most recently trading 25 points higher (0.
- Barrons.com
Apple and Big TVs Are What’s Hot In The Electronics Aisle
Citi surveyed the managers of 50 U.S. retail and electronics stores and found the biggest upside surprise in wireless headphones, in particular Apple AirPods.
- Benzinga
Roku Leads In Subscriber Battle With Apple, Amazon
Roku, Inc. (NASDAQ: ROKU) is in the lead ahead of rival streaming players Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), according to the latest research from eMarketer. Roku will maintain its lead in the streaming space, and by 2023 it will have 111.7 million streaming players in the U.S. compared to Amazon Fire TV’s 88.3 million, according to eMarketer.
- Zacks
Amazon Roundup: Government, re:Invent Conference, India, Other
Amazon had a big week with government issues, a host of new deals and announcements at its annual conference and developments in India.
- Reuters
Trade deal removes major hurdle for rally in Apple and tech
U.S. President Donald Trump's limited trade deal with China removes a major hurdle for Apple and other technology stocks that have already surged this year to record highs. China has agreed to boost imports of U.S. energy, pharmaceutical and agricultural products, although Chinese officials offered no details on the amount of U.S. goods Beijing had agreed to buy. If it is signed, Trump's long-awaited deal will be a relief to Apple, among the U.S. companies with the most to lose in the trade war between the world's two largest economies, along with chipmakers who make the components in its devices, which are mostly made in China.
- Barrons.com
Synaptics Shares Spike on Speculation It Won Slot in New Apple iPhones
Susquehanna Financial Group analyst Christopher Rolland points out in a research note that (AVGO) (ticker: AVGO) disclosed Thursday in reporting fiscal fourth-quarter earnings that it lost “a mixed signal customer product” from its largest customer. Rolland said that while the comment could be a reference to wireless charging, it more likely involves the touch controller in the phone—and could be a win for Synaptics (SYNA), a San Jose, Calif., company that makes touchpads and similar components for phones and laptops. Apple never comments on its relationships with suppliers, and discourages its partners from commenting as well.
- Barrons.com
Apple Stock Hits an All-Time High as Trump Reaches a China Trade Deal
Apple shares touched a new all-time high as the tentative trade deal with China averts a new 15% tariff on Chinese goods that was due to take effect on Sunday.
- Investor's Business Daily
Stock Market Whipsaws On Trump Tweets About 'Very Large Phase-One Deal'
The Dow Jones Industrial Average whipsawed on news of a "very large" phase-one China trade deal per President Trump's tweet in the stock market today.
- Barrons.com
Why Oakmark’s Bill Nygren Calls Google and Netflix Value Stocks
Veteran value investor Bill Nygren has seen his share of ups and downs, but his long-term performance warrants patience. Here’s where he’s investing now.
- Bloomberg
YouTube’s Music App Outpaces Spotify, Local Rivals in India
(Bloomberg) -- YouTube has signed up more than 800,000 subscribers for its paid services in India since debuting in March, according to people familiar with the matter, vaulting it past some competitors in one of the world’s fastest-growing media markets.The services have been growing faster than rival paid music offerings in India, including Spotify and local players Gaana and JioSaavn, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the subscriber data hasn’t been released. Apple Music also competes in the market, but it’s been tight-lipped about its subscriber figures.Gaana, owned by Times Internet, has more than 1 million paid subscribers, according to a representative. But it’s been around for almost a decade and has more than 125 million monthly users, who mostly use the free version of the service.YouTube has long struggled to to gets users to pay for its services, especially since the company’s main website is synonymous with free videos. But the Google division has started to gain traction, and the numbers out of India suggest it’s having particular success in the world’s second-most-populous country.YouTube sells two paid services in India: YouTube Music Premium and YouTube Premium. The music service offers a library of songs on-demand, much like Spotify, as well as the ability to download tracks, listen to music without ads and play tunes while using other apps. YouTube Premium offers the traditional YouTube video service without ads -- and the ability to play clips offline. But music is the driving force behind YouTube’s appeal, especially in India.Bhushan Kumar, the Bollywood Boss Behind YouTube’s Top ChannelThe country has emerged as a battleground for online music services, which are eager to sign up users in a country with more than 1.3 billion people. Unlike China, where online media services are tightly controlled by the government, India offers a similarly massive population without the same level of regulation.Western companies such as Apple Music, Spotify and YouTube compete with local services, and will soon contend with Resso, a platform from Chinese tech giant ByteDance.ByteDance is testing Resso in India and Indonesia before rolling out a paid version of the app next year. ByteDance’s short-form video app TikTok has more than 200 million users in India, enough to be a real challenger to YouTube and Instagram.Major PresenceBut YouTube already has a big presence in India, giving it an edge as it tries to get subscribers to pay fees. More than 265 million people use the free YouTube service in the country, making it YouTube’s largest market. India is also home to the channel with the most subscribers, T-Series, the country’s largest record label. Google has plowed resources into India in its bid to find new internet users and markets.The growth is also notable because India isn’t typically hospitable to paid services. The country is one of the poorer major economies, making its average citizen very sensitive to price. The leading free music services, Gaana and JioSaavn, have tens of millions of users, but few paying subscribers.Representatives for Gaana and JioSaavn didn’t immediately respond to emails seeking comment.Netflix Inc., the world’s most popular paid online video service, has had to cut its price to compete in the country. It introduced a cheaper, mobile-only plan in India earlier this year and said this week it’s testing other pricing models.Netflix Is Spending $420 Million on Indian Content, CEO SaysYouTube has convinced people to pay by selling its service at a low price -- less than $2 a month -- and offering special features to subscribers. People who want to listen to music while not actively using the app -- a popular feature known as background listening -- must pay for it. The other apps offer background listening for free.Spotify has said that its Indian service has outperformed its expectations so far, though most of its growth has been from users of its free service.(Updates with Gaana subscriber figures in third paragraph.)\--With assistance from Ragini Saxena.To contact the reporter on this story: Lucas Shaw in Los Angeles at lshaw31@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Nick Turner at nturner7@bloomberg.net, Dave McCombsFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Zacks
The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: Netflix, Disney, Apple and Amazon
The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: Netflix, Disney, Apple and Amazon
- MarketWatch
UnitedHealth, Apple Inc. share gains lead Dow's nearly 100-point climb
DOW UPDATE Shares of UnitedHealth and Apple Inc. are posting strong returns Friday morning, propelling the Dow Jones Industrial Average into positive territory. Shares of UnitedHealth (UNH) and Apple Inc.
