June 23rd, 2011 1:40 am EST
Apple Is THE Stock To Own, But For How Long?
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Bull market or bear market, there is always that one stock that everybody has to own.
Right now that stock is Apple Inc. If you have any type of money invested in the markets, then there is an excellent chance that you own a slice of Apple, either directly or indirectly (through a mutual fund).
 Apple can do no wrong right now. The company has a market cap of over $300 billion, making it one of the most valuable publicly traded companies in the world. Apple has a multitude of massively successful products, from the iPod to the iPad to the iPhone to the iMac. Investors have been falling over themselves to buy shares in Apple over the past number of years. There are not many slam dunks out there in the markets right now, they'll say, but Apple is one of them.
Apple wows investors and analysts alike in nearly every single earnings report that they release. Just when you think that Apple might be starting to slow down - boom! They'll announce that they crushed earnings once again.
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Right now Apple is the perfect stock to own. Nearly everybody thinks that their portfolio is empty without shares of Apple.
It's easy to get lost in the euphoria. One thing that history has taught us, however, is that a stock will not be this popular forever. Euphoria has a shelf life. The Apple rollercoaster is slowly heading up to the heavens, but there will come a time when that rollercoaster will hit its apex and, at the very least, level off. Or, as in many cases, hurtle back towards the earth.
History is littered with examples of stocks that were once rock stars and are now just ordinary. Ordinary returns. Ordinary earnings reports. Ordinary prospects for growth.
MSFT. IBM. QCOM. NKE. The list goes on and on. These are all great businesses to be sure. At one time or another, investors HAD to own shares in these four companies. At one time or another, these stocks were seemingly powered by rocket fuel making a parabolic trip to the moon. In the case of all four companies, euphoria eventually mellowed out into reasonable expectations for growth.
The same thing will happen to Apple. It's not a bad thing - it's just the way that things are in the markets. Eventually Apple's ridiculous growth will start to level off. Eventually Apple will lose its title of being THE company to own. Eventually another company will come along that will capture the attention of the investing public and steal the spotlight away from Apple.
Apple remains the "perfect stock" to own, but for how long?
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