Apple Inc, from an investment perspective

Short Apple. That's my short of the decade. This ain't gonna pay off in 3 months or even a year, but given that Blogger doesn't go down in 10 years, I'm pretty sure this post will look very good by then.

Which is crazy. AAPL trades at $587 today, and the company is posting a $44 eps, making its PE2012 13.3x. Given that it's usually a bad bad idea to short anything 13x historical PE, let alone a tech stock, this is a pretty whacked trade. Let's say Apple posts zero growth in the upcoming year, it's still trading at forward PE2013E 13.3x. fuck. looks like shorting it is dumb. 

But what about in 10 years? Given my firm belief that Apple has seen its peak and its innovation died with Steve Jobs, I'd say this company is going down the shithole and it's just a matter of time. It has its huge cash pile now, but one day it'll burn out. When iPad 10 looks exactly like the 9.7" brick we see today, and when iPhone 10 continues to play behind the curve, that cash will burn out. 

Going back to the short trade, and why it's dumb. It's only dumb if a short squeeze is in the coming, meaning the short will incur huge fucking loss before seeing the light of day, and meaning that there will be a better time to short in the future. But what exactly is gonna push this company forward from this point on? Tim Cook is great at doing what he does which is pennypinching, which is great for the bottomline today, but he's made all the possible wrong decisions in terms of innovation. (yes taking the DVD off the iMac to make it slimmer is one of them. The man clearly doesn't know Blurays still sells pretty well.) My belief is that Apple has lost it, and if I am right, then there's nothing on earth that can push its stock price higher, from this point on. 

So, maybe the time is now and maybe one just needs to bite the bullet and short a 13x PE tech stock. But hey, at least borrow will cost you next to nothing.

Footnote: i'm not even gonna promote this post on Twitter or Facebook cuz I don't need to start a flame war. If you somehow came across it and read it, thank you. If you want to comment, please make it constructive. 

The Dark Knight Rises: John Blake

SPOILER ALERT: pls stop reading if you haven't seen Batman: The Dark Knight Rises.



Now that you've been warned, we can start. Just to put it out there, this isn't a movie review. I just want to write to hopefully start a discussion on Joseph Gordon-Lewitt's character. His name is John Blake, and by the end of the movie we would learn that he has a middle name "Robin". It's natural to assume he's Christopher Nolan's version of Batman's unpopular sidekick, even though his name is not Tim Drake or Dick Grayson. My real question is, will Nolan take this any further? Nolan has said he won't be doing more Batman movies, and Christian Bale also said this is his last time acting as the Dark Knight. But what about a movie centered around Robin? (Guys, don't roll your eyes just yet.) Nolan has been able to develop a solid backstory on John Blake, and JGL's acting in The Dark Knight Rises has shown he's up for the task of leading a movie. Can this be the one time for Robin? Can he actually be both cool and the center of attention? I would love to hear what the internet has to say about this.

From a business angle, this also makes a lot of sense. It will be hard for Warner Bros to just let such a profit-making franchise die. To reboot it in even the distant future will be suicidal as the Nolan trilogy has impacted so much on the franchise and Nolan has put such a large footprint on Batman as a character. The only way to continue raking in the money is to develop a side-story, and Robin seems like a natural fit.

On a slightly longer shot, maybe Nolan will let John Blake be Nightwing, which is obviously ultra-cool. Except I think Nightwing isn't as well known by the mass public and it may not be as good a fit for Warner Bros business wise.

What do you think? Discuss!

A Quick Account in Modern Day Instant Messaging

Just like all things tech, instant messaging has evolved a lot since the early days of the internet. This is to quickly summarize what has gone down in the past decade or so in terms of messaging one another. Spoiler: login-required protocols are out, login-free protocols are the way to go.

ICQ
This is probably the most ancient IM. Each user account is assigned a "number" according to their initial registration and users are required to log in every time. The idea of alphanumerical username was too advanced.

MSN/AIM/Yahoo
Email service providers entered the IM market with MSN quickly taking over as the most predominant IM service globally. (With the exception of the US which preferred AIM slightly more.) Each user account is represented by an alphanumerical username which is just your @hotmail address.

Facebook Message/Chat
Facebook made a breakthrough in the IM world with their integrated messaging service. It started with Facebook Message, and then Chat was introduced. Eventually, these two are combined as one and became Facebook Messenger as we know it today. This is still login-required but with most people permanently logged into their Facebook account on their desktop and mobile, the actual action of logging in became obsolete.

GTalk
A not-so-popular service which has the benefit of being integrated into Android phones and GMail. Once again, it's still login-required but most people are permanently logged in anyways.

Skype
More a VoIP service but there's an IM aspect to it. I wouldn't say it's very popular but some people depend on it. Login is required.

Whatsapp/Line
And finally in comes the truly login-free IM service. This type of IM links to a cellphone number and no login/password is required. The obvious requisite is for the messaging party to know each other's phone number.

I would think that most people use FB and Whatsapp the most today with GTalk here and there. Let's revisit this post in say 3-5 years time and I'm sure things will be very, very different.