there profit margins are just crazy 23% nice

You may be?

I bought a new MacBook Pro after trying a PC laptop.

While the PC was a lot cheaper the MacBook Pro is a lot nicer in every way.

IOW if you have the money or if money was not an issue The MacBook Pro is outstanding.

I'm talking 17'' mid level MacBook Pro is outstanding.

Win 10 is glitchy imo at least on the rig I was trying.

I didn't like that MacBook Pro don't have USBa port and I need all the adapters but I love the large trackpad and the screen in great.

Apple service segment alone (not hardware) made as much as Facebook last quarter yet FB is valued at half the price of entire Apple.

With a 2 percent dividend and PE around 15 it still seems like a value stock in the tech sector to me

I'd say but people worry about phone sales (ie. Nokia, Blackberry etc..) but to me, it's also of a culture/cult with 1B user base and $250B offshore cash?

2% dividend is cool and it also is buying back $50B in shares (unsure of the number)

I already own too much of APPL so I am not buying at these prices.

I love Apple and it has been a huge hit for me, but APPL is 14% of all my stock so I am trying to diversify but I am not selling the bulk, but I would like to trim my position down to 10% at most.

My point, just because I love the stock and think it's good price, good upside. Just to myself it doesn't make sense to load up any more on Apple since I don't want too many eggs in one basket.

not picking on your assessment, I just wanted to go back to this point.

Apple in the holiday quarter sold $7.2 Billion in Mac computers that is the higher quarter they have EVER had. This despite the fact that worldwide PC sales are in decline.

I own a MacBook Pro 2016 and this is the first Mac PC I've bought. I have owned Win PCs for 25 years.

I don't say Mac/Apple computers are cheap, but I've read (and heard) a lot about how Macs last longer, have less issues (viruses) less tech support needed.

My personal experience with Win PC has been they start to degrade as time goes on, but even out of the box have a lot of driver issues, need to reboot and upgrade a lot and I think for the same specs run a bit slower than Mac.

I have a MacBook pro from a few years ago.. Besides being slightly faster, going to these new ones would be like going to a MacBook air.. No CD, no regular USB, no SD card slot. touch bar.. would've been cool if they did it 5 years ago. Make the whole screen touchable like every one else.

I don't care for touchable screen apple in my computer, no fingerprints. Also, Apple wants you to buy a iPad if you want a surface type computer.

no DVD (ehh) I bought an external DVD for $25 but have yet to take it out of the box. I'm thinking why did I buy the DVD for?

No ports, eh that's a drag, but I can get over with it. Like if you say MM doesn't have a manual plunger, it's not really a key feature of the pin. I plug in a USB stick into an adapter and there is even USB sticks with two ends USBa and USCc if you need and going forward USBa will disappear as USBc takes over more fully.

If you are measuring the MacBook Pro and say it's go not HDMi port or no flash drive slot and think that means it's not a good laptop you are really not informed IMO.

It may be the same (ish) as you old Mackbook pro but it's probably half the weight. My wife has an older gen MacBook Pro and it's got DVD and 5 different slots. Guess what it's not anywhere near as nice as the new one. And she'd probably sell the old one and get a new one and just get a few dongles to support external peripherals. It's worth losing half the weight and getting a better display.

If you think MacBook Pro is a failure, sales or otherwise, I don't agree. I think people will pay premium price for them knowing full well it doesn't have DVD or USBa inputs.

You're proof I'm a minority. I just see it as a MacBook air branded as the pro. Where's the full featured MacBook!?

Reality is 99% of people would be perfectly good with a MacBook Air.... but it does have only half the specs as a Pro, including smaller screen. Fortunately for Apple, people are still buying the latter anyway.

Now that we are well into earnings what have people bought or sold on pops or drops I bought MET sold half of my CSX

I sold *some* Apple but only because I have way too much exposure to that single stock.

I'm going to buy some Verizon wich is the worst performing DOW stock this year

Looks like the bulls are in charge and getting the best of the bears today

After the verizon unlimited announcement today and the response by the other carriers I might hold off on that one/

I really don't make decisions based on market noise. Verizon is a solid company, it's selling for cheaper price PE than ATT and it's got a solid dividend. I don't expect Verizon to go under and it's selling for 15% less than it's 52 week high. I don't like to buy stocks on good news days, I buy when it looks dreary. Whenever I want to buy GOOG, I do so after they loose $20 in a day or $50 in a month. I don't buy after they have a huge run up. Same with any stock, I prefer to buy on sale.

That said, I have some options on VZ that will force me to buy it weather I want to or not. However that was the same thing last year when I was forced to buy AAPL at $95 and it was not all sunshine and roses but the stock is well up.

Just sold 500 shares of Disney @ 111. Purchased back in September for around 92.

Purchased 1,000 shares of Harley Davidson @ 57.

**Note: I use round numbers for purchase price.

Nice gain. 20%.

The problem, though, is finding a new place to park that money. And repeating.

I've done nothing but be invested in the market during this timeframe. I've seen an 11% gain simply given the market increase. But, I've also not paid any capital gains tax, as you will be doing.

That knocks your return down to 17%.

And you still have to find a new investment as I said (HD in this case). Because you are working single investments, your Risk is massively higher than mine.

This isn't a criticism, just something to highlight between our strategies.

Trading account represents 18% of all investable assets. I am not including land, personal assets, life insurance etc.

In that account, I own several other companies too.

Sold 5 Apple puts for May. 135's brought in 3.29
Sold 5 Apple calls for May. 145's brought in 3.02.

Currently own 500 shares bought in Nov at 106.

Short term capital gain tax is your marginal tax rate as high as 39.6%

plus state tax (my state) 7%
Plus (potential) Medicare surtax 3.8%

That's 50% tax on short term gains

I don't worry about taxes. It leads to making bad investment decisions on the selling side.

Imagine not selling First Solar at 75 due to taxes.

According to my congressman, 50% isn't enough.

I'm not judging and don't know your tax rate, but something like 50% tax rate, I often wait until a position becomes long term (unless I have losses to offset the gain)

I'm by an large a long term investor, not a short time trader. Pay less commissions and less taxes.

My only vice is selling options which are counted as income or ST gains.

Could be worse

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I know the whole story behind the song.

Tax law isn't designed to help us, it's designed to punish us.

That's why Led Zep and the Stones became tax exiles.

It does discourage *me* from working extra hard or overtime because my later dollars are not worth as much.

Not trying to get political here, but I look at how much I pay in taxes and I see how much people take in welfare. I'm a business owner and I pay the government more than I pay myself...my congressman had the audacity to tell me that I don't pay enough.

Yet, people on welfare don't need to work for their benefits. I say that in order to collect benefits, one must be neutered or spayed.

Then when you're off welfare and you want kids, you can pay to get it reversed.

At least they were not hypocrites like U2 is.

Too bad the constitution gets in the way.

But it doesn't get in the way in the government paying out welfare.

I feel blessed that I am able to make good money and don't mind paying taxes. But wish our tax system was not so top heavy when almost half don't pay anything not even a token amount.

Social Security is also weighed heavily against high earners, I could pay 5x as much in SS and only receive 2x as much in benefits.

I don't mind paying taxes and feel good to contribute but wish most was not wasted or given away. Wish it was a bit lower or there was a broader base of tax payers.

I'm right there with you.

My problem with social security, is I pay the whole 14% (I just rounded) for social security taxes. When I calculate how much I put in and ho much I will get, I will need to live to 120 in order to break even.

I equate that with going to a bank to open up $100,000 CD and the bank tells you after 30 years it will be worth $50,000.

Where do I need to click to read the rest of the story?

I payed on monday

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Retirement.

I'm roughly 15 years away from retirement. Trying to "hit a number" and appear to be on track....with some luck.

Anywho....what it the best way to maximize the "payout" with an uncertain life expectancy? I just looked into "immediate annuities" and the results looked pretty decent considering it's "guaranteed" income (for life if you choose).

Anyone? Beuller?

ferris_bueller_quotes_teacher1 (resized).jpg

What's your risk tolerance?

What are your assets?

What are your liabilities?

Do you have any future purchases planned...ie - 2nd house in Florida.

Do you have life insurance? If so, what kind? Cash value?

Do you have college for your kids to pay?

How much does it cost to be you for a year?

Could be books to read on the subject.

Basically, you will get some Social Security and this is one thing you can maximize i.e. Work at least 35 years and delay taking SS (if you can) until you are 70 (maybe you are not on board for this you could split the difference and delay until 69 or whatever) this calculation is supposed to be life expectancy neutral but if you end up on living longer than 85 years old you will come out ahead and lock in a higher payment. This may be controversial since you will forgo a few years of lower payments but if you end up living longer than 85 you will be happy and SS is indexed for inflation.

As for annuity you are taking a chance in that if you die early your heirs will not get the proceeds. Maybe if you want, spit the difference and annuity 25% of your savings (I don't know too much about this but just made up a middle number, you could do more or none at all its up to you). Then you'd have guaranteed income for life from some annuity and SS.

The rest (I'd recommend) keeping in 60:40 or 50:50 stock:bonds for as long as you live and take ~4% per year and it'll last you (maybe) 30 years and maybe longer maybe less but if you retire at 60-62 than 30 years is good enough.

Check out www.firecalc.com where you can plug in a lot of different variables and see how you will do and how much you might need to be financially independent.

Maybe you are being funny but you can not answer the question until you lock down what your have, how old you are, how much you save, are you married, any kids, any chance of divorce or future marriage or future kids a lot of questions and just giving two word answer to above questions is telling nothing and you'll get nothing. Garbage in garbage out.

If you plan on having kids figure to spend a lot more than you currently are spending.

You can "annuitize" (for a smaller payout) that will pay out the remainder of your funds to your heirs.

I think I have a better than average chance of exceeding 85. Holding off on SS until 70 shouldn't be an issue.

Well I'm not really comfortable getting into extreme financial detail on a website....call me crazy.

You have a pot of money set aside for retirement.....on average, what is the best way to maximize your payouts from that pot for the longest period of time? Let's say 30 years if we have to pick a number. You mentioned getting approximately 4% from your investments....which you could theoretically do and not even touch the principle. But I've seen immediate annuities that pay out 5.4% for life.....of course you are chewing into the principle here but the payout is guaranteed for life regardless of what happens in the market. Just wondering if there are better/smarter alternatives?

You should post on bogleheads. Not that there's bad advice here, just that posting this kind of recommendation based on your particulars is exactly what they do.

To me holding out for SS until 70 is key.

I always say *if you can* than you should. A lot of folks simply can't wait because they haven't saved enough and so they need to take SS early. But if you can wait do so. It's like my dad is 89 and he's still health as ever.

As for annuity and leave some for later payout, why not just annuitize a small part and keep the rest free. IOW if you had $1M why not annuity 250k and keep the rest free. Once you tie up the money in an annuity you can't get it back or you will pay to break it out and annuities cost some for sales fee and insurance fees etc.. They are not magic. Some people like them some don't if you are unsure do some research and if you are still unsure just split the difference and do some not all.

IMO

Also please avoid taking advice from salesman they are looking out for one person and it isn't you. They will look out for you after they look out for themselves first.

How can you tell if a salesman is lying? His lips are moving.

Www.bogleheads.org

Ah,

I misspoke 4% plus inflation, meaning start at 4% but if next year inflation is 3% take a bit more etc. this won't exempt the nest egg you will take dome dividends but some off the principal as well, it's not for infinity but for 30 years plus or minus. If you want more than 30 years need to take like 3% plus inflation.

A fixed annuity will always pay the same so in 30 years when milk costs $9/gal you'll still be receiving the same payment as you did when you started. Probably in 15-20 years one dollar will buy half of what it buys now.

That's why maximum SS is key because it's automatically indexed for inflation.

Although subject to change, nothing about SS is fully guaranteed but it's kind of like a sacred cow. They probably will cut some and raise the age for younger workers or raise the tax withholding or all three.

My retirement:

Whole life policy
Profit sharing plan
House paid off
Rental condo paid off
Savings
Proceeds from sale of my business

That's my current situation. Real estate isn't paid off yet, but will be before I retire.

What I would like to add:

2 more rental condos
Start 2 more businesses
As I near retirement, my portfolio will shift to produce more income

I'm single now, but if I ever get married, I'm marrying someone with a good career. I saw first hand what marrying a leech does...that will never happen to me.

My goal is 3.5% safe withdrawal rate.

Unless the leech is AMAZING in the sack...

I plan on having a prenup that rivals Lord of Rings in length.

You'll be dead before you spend all of that equity.