If You Bought Apple Stock Instead of Products

In March of 2007 I bought 25 shares of AAPL for $2,299.50. It's now worth $8,666.75<p>In June of 2007 I bought a MacBook Pro for $1,999 to run my startup off of. (The chart says that if I had bought stock instead, it'd be worth $4,413.)<p>The ROI on the MacBook Pro has been the better investment in my opinion.

Another day, another imaginary profit using 20/20 hindsight. Yes, stock trading is easy using a time machine. Do you have a time machine? I didn't think so. Next!

If (in early 2000) You Had Bought Nokia Stock Instead Of A Nokia Phone...<p><a href="http://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE:NOK" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE:NOK</a><p>...you could today afford two styrofoam cups and a piece of string.<p>An off-hand observation: Nokia's late-90's rise looks just as spectacular as Apple's in the 00's.

Skip the article and go straight to the numbers: <a href="http://www.kyleconroy.com/apple-stock.php" rel="nofollow">http://www.kyleconroy.com/apple-stock.php</a>

Of course, the flaw here is that if you take this to it's logical extreme, a world in which everybody instead spent money on Apple stock instead of buying Apple products, then Apple's revenue over that period would have become zero, and then almost inevitably the stock would become zero too.<p>But yeah.

Based on this table, it looks like if you buy the equivalent amount of stock every time you buy a new Apple production, you'll get a free upgrade within 2-3 years?<p>My current machine is:<p>Apple MacBook Pro "Core 2 Duo" 2.8 15" (SD) 2009-06-08 $2299 $4,328<p>and it's about time to upgrade.<p>And I could really use an iPhone 4 upgrade from my 3GS:<p>Apple iPhone 3GS 16, 32 GB 2009-06-08 $199 $375<p>The Mac Mini sitting under my TV could more than replace my whole entertainment center:<p>Apple Mac mini G4/1.42 2005-01-11 $599 $5,026

How were companies like APPL, GOOG, and MSFT perceived in the time before their stocks took off?<p>Was it obvious to people in the industry that these companies would be successful? Was it seen more of a hit or miss? Were people betting against their success?

Sure, if I bought stock instead of Apple products I'd be loaded.. but would I understand why?

Annoyingly, over the years I have told myself that I should be buying AAPL instead of the products. Never took my own advice.<p>Although it'd be more interesting to see the differential between AAPL and the SP500 in the same time (because you probably actually did buy that via a 401k or whatever)

I wonder if this would work as an investment strategy:<p>A month after I buy a product, if I still love what I bought, buy the same amount in stock of that company (or a fixed multiple/divisor of the amount spent).

But then I'd be sitting at an empty desk in silence!

Well in 2007 I bought a mac and ended up developing for my iPhone and I've made much more than 6x (about the going rate for 2007 items).

If we all would've bought Apple stock instead of their products the stock would've gone nowhere!

2003 seems to be the best year for those missing out on 1997:<p><a href="http://goo.gl/PqYeQ" rel="nofollow">http://goo.gl/PqYeQ</a> (best bang for buck version - google sheets).

of course, if everyone followed the above advice the stock would not have gone up (at each snapshot in time) since the reduction in purchased products and profits would not have moved the stock. That is, unless you subscribe to the tragedy of the commons, and let the commons write their own tragedy as you raked in the stock uptick / gains. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons</a>

I would have made $200. I'll stick with the iPod.

This kind is logic might work with coca cola stock but it certainly doesn't with apple. How do you measure the roi of a Mac Pro?