Trade Alert – Flip the fruit ninja

Flip it. Be contrarian.

A good friend of mine who used to be a bigwig over at Google and now is a bigwig at a startup and who is a subscriber to TradingWithCody.com, wrote to me the following after reading last week’s full transcript to our more recent “Live Q&A with Cody”.

Holy moly.  No questions on AAPL?  If that’s not a contrary indicator I don’t know what is!  Give me a little more of ‘dem apples! Congratulations again on the marriage.  Many years of happiness to come. – David

I really did marry a wonderful local girl. And I really haven’t had any questions about Apple lately except for things like this:

Cody, I am beyond disgusted with this stock. It cannot muster any momentum even on a green day. It’s only pop this year was when Einhorn went public with his lawsuit. Would appreciate some really meaty analysis on what you see with the company, the stock price and what it will take to turn the perception. Holding a hundred shares is a weight on my account when I could be using it for better plays. Thanks, LP.

I’ve mentioned before that I’ve seen pullbacks in Apple that lasted longer and went deeper than even the current 30% drawdown from Apple’s all-time high over the years since I’ve owned it from $7 since March 2003. I was wrong to think that the stock would pop right back to $700 after a strong iXmas selling season and a historical record earnings for a tech company in last quarter’s earnings report. Alas, I would venture that my bud, ex-Googlite David, is onto something about looking at Apple as a potential popper in the near- and mid-term.

They say the opposite of love isn’t hate but apathy. At six times this year’s earnings when you account for the $140 billion in cash on their balance sheet, there’s either a lot of hate or a lot of apathy or a lot of both about this stock.

I’m going to, yes, add a little more Apple common here to my portfolio, and if this stock can ever get some mojo back towards $500 again, I might even be willing to go back in for a new round of Apple call options, which over the years have been very, very good to me and my investors and subscribers, even if I was dead wrong when I bought some in December.