Comments on Fund My Mutual Fund: Apple (AAPL) Surging on Talk of Share Buyback

Don't feel bad NL.The computers just seem to be do...

2008-10-29T17:33:00.000-04:00

Don't feel bad NL.

The computers just seem to be doing everything - overwhelming humans. Here is a piece from Rev Shark over at Realmoney.com who is generally a swing trader but has been daytrading to make any money lately. The point being he is generally someone with a short term focus. Humans just cannot keep up with this type of market - even for people who stare at the screen every second of the day and make a living out of it; HAL9000 is smashing them. In the long run it cannot continue like this because humans will pull out their money and then the computers won't have anything to play with. But between "now" and "then": is the question.

*****

Even Daytraders Can't Handle This Volatility
By Rev Shark
RealMoney.com Contributor
10/29/2008 4:15 PM EDT
URL: http://www.thestreet.com/p/rmoney/revsharkblog/10444952.html

What a roller-coaster ride of a market. The DJIA moves about 400 points in the final 10 minutes of trading, wiping out the days gains. Anxiety about being left behind, a short squeeze and program trading gave us another powerful up move in the final hour of trading, but with about 10 minutes left, a huge selling wave hit and drove us sharply back down.

The moves in the last hour have been so crazy lately they are a joke. Even the shortest-term daytraders are complaining about the level of volatility. The moves are so fast and whipsaws so big that it is impossible to employ any money-management discipline. It has to be huge programs operating, because human traders just can't move that fast manually.

I guess you noticed the previous discussion I init...

2008-10-29T16:20:00.000-04:00

I guess you noticed the previous discussion I initiated on dividends.

I think buybacks are great, but not when a company is always buying back it's stock. Why not save cash for times like these, not when the market was at all time highs. When the market is performing well, why not pay dividends??

It is simple ROI, if the stock is up recently..why buy it back?? Well actually the answer is to help greedy and well compensated execs unloaded inflated shares. But for the good of all shareholders...there is no good reason why.

I don't see why AAPL cannot say use $15 bil to initiate a buyback of around 15%. and then have like $10/share cash safety net, and use a chunk of cash flow..maybe 4$/share/year for dividend.

Then AAPL can have a floor in two ways...buyback and yield support.

I just say this because all the DOW stocks buying back stock at DOW 14,000 burned through the cash, they should be using now to buyback their stock at DOW 8-9000.

wow, I would do better at poker.much better - what...

2008-10-29T16:04:00.000-04:00

wow, I would do better at poker.
much better - what a plunge again on the dow. Why am I participating in this mess?
Why? This has nothing to do with reality, all with trading in 5 min intervals.
Crazy. Luckily i sold some longs and did not dump the short etfs when it was looking like the down was taking off. I am in way over my head. I cannot do this, I must most honestly admit.
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