AAPL took a bite out of me

Today I wasn't sleeping well as I had a long position in AAPL right before earnings, I have caught this falling knife before, but I figured 3 times burned, it probably finally found a short term bottom at 500, how bad can it be.  I asked my friend for advice, and he thinks the fundamentals are solid, single digit PE ratio, what could possibly go wrong?  I guess the answer is momentum.  This stock has been falling so fast for since September, it will keep going down since now Apple isn't a growth stock anymore but a value trap, however a company with this much cash and such a great revenue stream must be worth more then 0, so where is it fairly valued?  Someone on FastMoney today put it at $425, seems fair, but do I dare at this point to buy again, wow, not really.  It has to bottom out first, it needs to be hated and remain at these levels for a while to form a base. The descending triangle of the past few weeks, turned out to bearish as it should be. Funny thing is same coworker then has me look at NFLX, up $40, ironic, same amount that AAPL dropped.

If you still want to hear more negativity about a stock that everyone owns and has nowhere to go but down, listen to Jeff Gundlach CEO of DoubleLine who makes many cogent arguments about AAPL on FastMoney. It is funny how in my paper money account I am short AAPL and bought a straddle out of mistake. It is interesting however how you can always find someone after the fact that was right about predicting an event after the fact.  From all the opinions out there, you can choose they guy who had the right one afterwards, however that still doesn't help in predicting the future.

For my own trading I have observed over and over again that when it comes to trading paper money or advising others I do much better then trading real money. I asked for Alberto Verdeja to draw the cartoon above as I really felt bitten by my belief in AAPL and the corroborating friend who I am sure feels my pain, but in the end, even if you don't agree with the market, you can't make money trading if they don't bid up your stock.  It is also a lesson of remembering what you believed in before, I have said that Apple is a sell on strength before, and yet I didn't take the bid towards the end of the day, right before earnings.  It is easier to trade paper money.

The ironic thing is I look at that red trend line that I have extended to the right, it perfectly predicts today's prices.

You can see how it came from the longer term trend since September, we are still on that downward trend.  It all became so clear after listening to FastMoney and looking at the graphs.  Apple is still a sell on strength.

Working at social, I watched the Social Network Friday night, on the last day before the DVD has to go back and it is an interesting movie.  Reminded my of Charles, but when I said that Eric pointed out that he saw his mug shot, really?  How? It turns out that this site lists the pictures in google picture search, so you see this mug of someone you know and of course you click on it to learn more, well it was a violation of being on the roadway, OK, but if I want the full report I have to pay $120, no thanks, but who knows in some cases people might be willing to pay for the convenience of getting this info after giving a CC#, immediate gratification, however I do suspect that this is public information that I might get if I fly to Austin and go the police station, if I really cared to find it.  Maybe I could get it for free, but by that time I will have spent way more then $120 to get it, not that I care, I can only imagine he crossed the street inebriated, but who knows, we don't talk much anymore. A quick call the Charles reveals a pretty boring story. Last day at work, going out on the town, bumping into a person as he is texting, next thing he knows, the cops take him in.

I am not at the MV library and found a pretty cool book: Google Resume which I should have read a long time ago, I might have landed a better job, not that I am complaining, I am in the right place to prepare for a better career at a start-up or established company. I am learning about how to manage large teams and just maybe someday I might even be put in a position to work on one. I do like the people I work with and since we are in a large company that only pays 40h/week I don't have much incentive to work those 50 hour weeks that take so much away from my life, as fun as they may have been at a start-up with all the ideas that could be big, this is more steady income.

After the library we rented a GM SUV of some sort packed in the 3 kids, and 4 adults, drive 250 miles to Sparks NV for sum fun on the snow, the kids are very excited about playing in the snow :) So far it has been fun and pretty good drive, other then a missing address for the meeting point it went pretty well this morning. I had to go relieve myself in the back yard as the homeowner of our meeting point was much later then we were. We made all the way to Loomis before stopped to change drivers.  hour:39 to go, hope to get there soon. This is how long I managed to not use my laptop, dirty little secret is I brought 2 of them, but it is hard not to do so as I am currently transitioning from one to another and I suspect I will have to do some work on Monday, but then again I haven't been taking 2 to the office and I can almost do everything on both of them right now. Going from W7-VMware Ubuntu to Mac, but it only has half the RAM and now VM so it concerns me that I might not be able to do my job right on it.  On the other hand the usability of the Mac is better and I don't need 2 OSs to get it done.

Got into room on the 23rd floor at the JANugget.com with a pretty foggy view this morning of a frost covered Reno below. I was kind of impressed with the CFL in the desk lamp having premanent marker on it saying it was placed there on 11/30/01, 11 years ago, pretty good.  There was no Internet in the rooms so this morning I finally went to the front desk and got an internet access card, which it turns out is included, however the speed is .25Mb, oh well, no streaming I guess. This is after all a vacation that shouldn't consist of Netflix. Yesterday we spent the day at Soda Springs, after waiting in line for 3 hours we got 1 hour of fun in, mind you they were various lines, and the place was crawling with people, don't know why it isn't that cheap or great, but it did have a Planet Kids thing that we went there for and spent $30 to get all 3 in, then the food was of course overpriced, but what are you going to do?  Leave?  So we had some fun in the snow, the 4 year old didn't take well to skiing, but tubing was much more practical, they enjoy that. Odly enough the line for the skies was the longest, I should have let mom take the line and then taken her to the fun, however they way the designed it is by the time you realize this, you can't talk to them as they are stuck in a container, no contact.  I didn't try to text, that would have saved the day, but who know it would take over an hour to get skies.

Finally there is some light in the room, as the hazyness lights up.  however the family doens't wake from my typing yet so I asked Laolao: 你想唤醒西溪？