Apple- the world's most valuable company

I want to wish all you out there a Happy New Year. I hope 2013 brings you peace and prosperity. There is a reason why I based my first post on Apple. I know it really belongs on my other blog, but it brought me such good gains in 2012 when I started investing in it in January 2012 that I have made it my good luck charm going into the New Year. Yeah! I am a little superstitious.

Working on my brand new iPad 4!

As you can see, I love Apple products and Apple stock of course, but the two shouldn't necessarily go together. Always have a stock trader hat and a lover of products hat when looking at something as hyped up by Wall Street as Apple.

I am not going to jump into some hardcore fundamental analysis here, but simply lay the foundation for a more detailed stock analysis of the world's most valuable company. 

On Apple versus Google

There is a war going on in Silicon Valley and this was excellently characterized in Steve Jobs speech where he was mad at Google. But I am sorry to say that I find Google to be a more valuable company for investors. 

Apple's problems lies in its short product life cycle and escalating R&D costs. Whereas, Google has the edge in the mobile industry with it being the market share leader, although Apple is the profit leader (that's what counts for stock investors, anyway). Nonetheless, Google is the cornerstone of the Internet that is going to translate to a lot more dollars for the Search giant.

I have big plans for 2013 after 2012 was my best year yet! There's going to be a lot of changes around here and I've been working on how to make my blog truly world class. For a moment, I suppose you thought I was going to do a Thelma & Louise. Nah! Good things take time.

I have been getting more awesome!

I know. I know it's been awhile. I promised big things and fail to deliver many of you might think. The truth is that I underestimated a lot of the work that would be needed to get something like this up and running and giving me a good ROI.

Alright guys, I'll admit a few things here. I was a bit lazy, but it was mostly because a lot of the work at my real job (the one that has seen me get a pay raise recently) has been time-consuming. Moreover, I was in a situation where I was really confused about whether I should continue blogging or not. As you can see I have decided to go ahead and keep giving you information that you will come away feeling like you made some money just reading (or in most cases glancing) through it.

How have I been adding value to my life?

I have realized the importance of programming especially for something like what I have gotten myself into. In order to be a good programmer or to call yourself a 'sophisticated' programmer, you would need to know at least two languages. I have narrowed it  down to Java and C(C++). These are practical choices from my vantage point. Any good book on C++ (I recommend this one) will cover generic programming and object oriented programming. It will teach you how to program.

That is all you need really. You need to be able to program and demonstrate to employers and other business owners that you will be able to get the job done; i.e. programming. When you have shown a high skill level in languages such as Java and C++, it will ensure that your potential employers know that you have the programming skill and learning another language will be a breeze.

Trading this week

Tech stocks which are my favorite sector have been doing pretty well recently. I thought of putting my money on stocks like Ebay (the fundamentals look good) and Amazon (not so good fundamentals here, but definitely on an up trend). Given the holidays are here, what do you think about my choices of Mastercard, Visa and PayPal to name a few?

 

I thought I'll share a few treats here. This was me writing up this post at work (during a short break of course).

 

This is going on YouTube for sure!!

Let me a put a pic here to for good measure. Haha!

 

 

And what about that election. Will let you know my thoughts in due course. Until next time...