What should I do with my shares of Apple?

hold on to them. they will go back up. everywhere you look you see people using apple products, and apple retail stores in malls are always packed.

Hold on to them, any stocks, hold on to them. If you sell them now you have lost money. They are a long term investment at this point. Maybe 10 years from now they will be back, you really only can gain money now.

For now, forget about them they are not = money, they don’t have a value, consider the entire investment as money lost until later. This is how it should be at any time with any stock investment.

First of all. You are doing it wrong.

“and formed a large part of my planned retirement portfolio”

That scares the shit out of me. You need to diversify. You lost 5% of your retirement today. The stock might go up in a few years. But you need to think about what will happen when you need that money. You might need to pull it out during a downturn. Having “all your eggs in one basket” is frightening.

I’m not going to comment on what I think the stock will do. But I would look into rethinking your investment strategy.

What is your timeline? Will you retire in 30 years or 3? If the former, johnpowell is right. As you have new money to invest, park it somewhere safe, like a money market fund, or buy a Blue Chip that is undervalued, has lots of cash, has good research in the pipeline and a low p/e. (Pfizer is an example. But I am not suggesting you buy it.)

Or check out the Vanguard 500 fund.

@johnpowell, I did diversify, but nothing else went anywhere. For example, I am still losing money on Microsoft. I am currently 60. I have enough other resources that I can wait on Apple for a few years. I am a little concerned about the health of Steve Jobs, as apparently are a lot of other people, which is part of the reason for the low price of the stock. I originally bought Apple when Jobs returned, on the assumption that he could turn the company around.

The main problem with Apple stock is that most analysts are clueless as how to evaluate Apple’s market position and its future.

http://apple20.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2009/01/21/apple-q1-2009-earnings-smackdown/

Even if Apple shows up at the earnings report today and explains how they blew away all estimates, the stock will only rise a fraction as much as it should.

In short, the stock should be valued much more highly. Problem is, it seems the shorts are determined to keep it in the basement.

So, if it were me, I’d hold on to it and hope for the rise that really should come one day. Then, when it reaches a predetermined point, go ahead and sell and move on to something more insulated from market manipulation.

Oh… and if you want the latest on Apple’s earnings reports after the market closes today, bookmark this.

Blimey… they sold 13.7 million iPhones in calendar year 2008. (Way up from Steve Job’s “optimistic” estimate of 10 million back in 2007.)

And to my point about the dumbass analysts and industry experts…

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“What does the iPhone offer that other cell phones do not already offer, or will offer soon? The answer is not very much… Apple’s stated goal of selling 10 million iPhones by the end of 2008 seems ambitious.” – Laura Goldman, LSG Capital, May 21, 2007

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”[Apple’s iPhone] is the most expensive phone in the world and it doesn’t appeal to business customers because it doesn’t have a keyboard which makes it not a very good email machine… So, I, I kinda look at that and I say, well, I like our strategy. I like it a lot.” – Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, January 17, 2007

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“Apple is slated to come out with a new phone… And it will largely fail…. Sales for the phone will skyrocket initially. However, things will calm down, and the Apple phone will take its place on the shelves with the random video cameras, cell phones, wireless routers and other would-be hits… When the iPod emerged in late 2001, it solved some major problems with MP3 players. Unfortunately for Apple, problems like that don’t exist in the handset business. Cell phones aren’t clunky, inadequate devices. Instead, they are pretty good. Really good.” – Michael Kanellos, CNET, December 07, 2006

Shares of Apple common stock up 12% today. (1–21-09).