Apple -- Absolutely Nothing To Do With The Bakken

I don't own any shares of AAPL and have no plans to purchase any.

I grew up with Apple and as regular readers know, I am an Apple fanatic. One of my "anonymous" tags at another discussion board is "Fan_Boy_3." Some years ago, my younger daughter and I would go to the Apple store at one of the malls out in California before the store opened, and unroll our prayer rugs, and bow down in front of the Apple logo. Yeah, I'm not making that up. Okay, maybe my daughter didn't bow all the way, but....

So, I'm getting a kick out of watching Apple and AAPL. I see CNBC now puts the AAPL ticker symbol in the lower right corner along with DOW, NASDAQ, GOLD, and WTI. Who wudda thot?

The reviews for the iPad 3 are coming out and I am surprised at what "reasonably balanced, unbiased" critics are saying. They pretty much agree that the iPad 3 is "a new animal."  I thought it was just further refinement, nothing to get all that excited about, but apparently it is is quite something.

As big as that story is, there are Apple stories much bigger. Take this one for example: iTunes is so ubiquitous, no one even talks about it any more. As the Business Insider say, it is Apple's forgotten business.

In Apple's fiscal 2011, iTunes represented 6% of its net sales, coming in at $6.3 billion.

In the most recent holiday quarter, iTunes clocked $2 billion in revenues. To put that in comparison, in that same quarter, Facebook did $1.1 billion in revenue. Even Google overall only did $10 billion in revenues for the quarter.

6%. 

And then this:

Although we think that the biggest issue shareholders want Apple management to consider now is issuing a dividend, imagine what happens when iTunes becomes a $30 billion business. 

What's the most interesting word in that last quote? 

"when"

My favorite concern that analysts bring up regarding Apple: will the iPad cannabalize Apple computers? Hello! iPads are computers. 

But to the point, it does not matter. Apple will build laptops and desktops so that supply meets demand. Just as GM/Chevy is matching the supply of Volts to demand, Apple will do the same with its computers. The only difference: Apple probably won't shut down production for five weeks.

How big is Apple? CNBC's talking head noted: the market cap of Apple exceeds the entire market cap of all companies in S&P's "MATERIALS" sector.  Apple exceeds the entire market cap of all companies in S&P's "UTILITIES" sector. And, Apple greatly exceeds the entire market cap of all companies in S&P's "TELECOM" sector.