Is Your Money Safe In The Stock Market?
Yesterday, for the first time in history, the Dow Jones industrial average closed above 22,000. This continues an 8-year rise out of the Great Recession that officially ended in 2009, though by many of our pocketbooks you wouldn't know it.
The Great Recession and the .com bust at the turn of the century decimated the retirement funds of a lot of us. Still, if you're like me, you've kept a good portion of your money in the stock market, because what else are you gonna do? Buy C.D.'s and get a return of 1.10%? Might as well put it under your mattress. So, yesterday's news is good news for investors and will have many people looking to get back into the stock market.
If you're looking for a sure-fire stock in which to invest these days, your best bet is still Apple. The company made its biggest jump in six months due to higher-than-expected profit and revenue. Apple's stock was up $4.73 yesterday and is trading at an all-time high of $157 dollars this morning. The incredible gains for the company were also driven by Apple's strong sales forecast which anticipates that the new IPhone 8 will arrive on time. 70% of Apple's revenue comes from sales of Steve Jobs' signature invention.
So, will your IPhone 7 become instantly obsolete upon the IPhone 8's introduction? Not really. From the inevitable leaks that spring up every time Apple announces a new product, there's not much new with the new model. It supposedly will have a clear and vivid OLED screen under curved glass which sounds suspiciously like what you get with an Android phone.
Which really is good news for me. Up until January of this year, I had the IPhone 7S Plus. It was so big, I couldn't find anywhere to carry it on my body. I didn't want to carry it around in a clip on my belt because it just looked awkward. Plus, every time I sat down it would it would jab me in the side. If I tried to put it in my back pocket, my pants fell off. So, when it flew off the top of my car as I was merging onto I-20 from Pines Rd. I was secretly relieved. (Lest you think otherwise, I did not leave it on my roof on purpose.) I replaced the 7S Plus with the plain-old 7S and we've been happy together ever since.
Anyway, back to Apple's stock. Since Tim Cook took over as CEO upon Steve Jobs' passing, Apple has not announced any true innovations. That may be about to change. On Tuesday, Cook hinted that his company was working on a long-term project that involves some kind of new autonomous technology. Here's what he said: "We do have a large project going and are making a big investment in this. From our point of view, autonomy is the mother of all AI [artificial intelligence] projects. And the autonomous systems can be used in a variety of ways, and a vehicle is only one. But there are many different areas of it, and I don’t want to go any further with that.”
Talk about a tease! This announcement has the geekerati in a tizzy. Could this finally be the flying car! Whatever it is, it's a good bet that Apple's stock will continue to climb. Now I gotta call my investment guy and see if I'm in it.