My colleague Jordan DiPietro wrote earlier this summer about "the best opportunity in a decade," explaining how some stocks many of us drool over are actually rather attractively priced. I didn't buy into any of them at the time, and wondered recently if it was too late. Turns out, they're still looking good.
Let's look at what's happened to the five stocks Jordan highlighted back in July:
|
Company |
Price Change |
Forward P/E Ratio
|
Forward P/E Ratio
|
Cash / Debt |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) |
1.3% |
14.8 |
15.7 |
$24B / $0 |
|
Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) |
(3.9%) |
10.9 |
9.6 |
$37B / $6B |
|
IBM (NYSE: IBM) |
(0.1%) |
10.6 |
10.5 |
$12B / $27B |
|
Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) |
(2.0%) |
14.9 |
15.7 |
$30B / $0 |
|
Cisco Systems (Nasdaq: CSCO) |
(5.6%) |
12.7 |
11.0 |
$40B / $15B |
Source: Yahoo! Finance. P/E = price-to-earnings ratio.
If anything, most of the changes have made these stocks more attractive for investors today. Four of the five declined in price, and the forward P/E ratios that rose didn't do so by much.
The stocks remain attractive for other reasons, too. Google's Android platform is being rapidly adopted, and it's likely to dominate mobile searching, too. Cisco is moving into new servers, beefing up its videoconferencing, and has announced a business-oriented tablet. IBM has for years been profiting by offering not only hardware, but also software and support services, making it hard for customers to switch vendors.
Apple has surpassed even Microsoft as it has built up a market cap topping $250 billion, and not only are its iPads and iPhones selling in huge numbers, but even its computer business is picking up, with Mac sales to businesses recently jumping 49%. Finally, it's hard to see Microsoft disappearing anytime soon, given that its operating system still dominates the PC world, as does its Word and Office suite. Its ventures into mobile and cloud computing may also boost its prospects.
All of these amazing companies will benefit as more individuals and businesses come online, needing to search the Internet, communicate, manage data, and do more on personal computers or other devices. They may not grow quite as briskly as they have in the past, but they still have rosy futures. And several years from now, we may be wishing we'd bought them now.
Dividend stocks are cheaper than you think. You can research and keep up with them easily by adding them to our new, free feature, My Watchlist.
