Apple's Crown Jewel: Valuing the iPhone Franchise

If you are a stockholder in Apple, it is time to celebrate again! The last week has been an eventful one for the company. In addition to claiming the title of "largest market cap" ever, when its market value hit $623.5 billion on August 20, the company also won its lawsuit against Samsung on "patent infringement" charges. Samsung will not only be required to pay $ 1 billion in damages but may also have to remove some of it products from the US market as a consequence. To add to the mix, the iPhone 5 will shortly be arriving on the shelves and there is talk again of Apple becoming the first trillion...

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Groupon Gloom: Deal of the day or Death Spiral?

In keeping with this week's theme of revisiting ghosts of valuations past, I decided to take a look at another fallen angel, Groupon. The stock has collapsed to $4.44 from its post-IPO high of $29 and investors and employees seem to be fleeing from the exits. If you are a contrarian with a strong stomach, it would like the stars are aligned for some bottom fishing but is Groupon a buy, even at this discounted price?To make this assessment, I decided to take a look at my posts on Groupon from last year:In my very first post on Groupon in June 2011, I looked at their attempt to move customer acquisition...

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Facebook face plant: Time to friend the company?

Facebook returned to the headlines on Friday, after it's stock price dropped below $20. At it's closing pricing of $19 on August 17, Facebook was trading at roughly half it's IPO offering price. Investors, analysts and journalists are all looking for the reason for the collapse and some at least seem to have found a ready target: the price drop, they argue, is the result of the "unlocking" of restrictions on insiders selling shares. The problem with this explanation is that it has never been a secret that insiders in Facebook would be able to sell shares starting August 16 and I would wager that...

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