Apple's Long Road To $300

itwbennett writes "Apple shares inched over $300 for the first time Wednesday, nearly 30 years after Apple's initial public offering in December 1980. But it hasn't been a steady climb. In fact, says blogger Chris Nurney, 'Apple's stock history can be divided into two clear periods — the early years, from the IPO through Steve Jobs's long absence from the company after losing a power struggle in 1985, and the modern Jobs era, which began on September 16, 1997.' The bottom line: 'If you had purchased $10,000 of Apple stock the same month that Jobs again began leading the company, your shares would be worth $554,000 today. Not a bad return on the investment.'"

Comments

You didn't even have to purchase it that early

[rolfwind]

Steve Jobs came back in 1997 and it had a small surge that was crushed in the dot com boom. Up to early 2004, you could acquire shares reasonably close to the 1997 price, it fluctated 1.5-2x, sometimes 3x, but after early 2004 it skyrocketed.

1997-2004 is when they had all those color iMacs and gaudy design (remember those awful clamshell notebooks?) befoe the industrial design. It returned to profitabilty, to be sure, and laid a lot of other groundwork, like 2001 was the release of OS X, to be sure.

And that same year (2001) iPod was released. Think about that. For almost 3 years after iPod's release, you could still have bought Apple at a bargain basement price. It took a long time for Wall Street to shed the malaise it had with Apple after the late 80s and early/mid-90s decline.

Re:How is Apple's stock price not a bubble?

[Ironsides]

Apple has a P/E ration of 22.6. That is about right for a company providing a large annual growth. It's not cheap, but it's not a bubble. Now, Amazon on the other hand has a P/E of 64. For comparison, the P/E of the S&P 500 is around 15 to 16 normally.

Re:My Two Cent Analysis

[panda]

Read more carefully please. The OP said "That was the reason the original Apple 2 was successful. You didn't have to know how to wield a soldering iron to have an affordable home computer." At the time the Apple ][ was released, the late '70s, that was pretty much true.