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Timing: The upcoming Apple Stock Split

I picked a really good time to invest in Apple. The company's fourth stock split since going public is scheduled for June 6, with a record date of June 2. A 7-to-1 split means that 6 additional shares will be issued for every 1 share currently owned. At the current price trend, that means a share price of around ~$90. Now for some historical analysis (disclosure: I am by no means a professional analayst, and am in no way recommending or endorsing any kind of investment).

Apple first split on June 16, 1987. According to Google Finance, the stock was priced at $79 on June 12, and then $41 after the 2-for-1 split on the 19th. During the next decade, Apple stock stayed in the $100 range, falling to $91 in June 2000 before their second 2-for-1 split brough the price back down to $51. Apple's thrid stock split happened only 5 years later in February, taking the stock from $89 at the end of the month, to $42. Now, anybody who's been watching Apple the past several years, knows that after breaking the $200 mark in early 2010, that the stock price has seen a drastic increase, reaching $633 at time of writing. Let's do the math for a long-time Apple investor: an initial investment of one measly share for $28 when they went public in 1981 would now be 8 shares, with a market value of over $5000. 

This upcoming split is different, because it's 7-for-1 as opposed to the standard twofer that's common among high-price equities. If Apple's recent meteoric rise is any indication, the new $90 shares could see a similar rise. Let's take our diehard investor from before: after the split, he will own 56 shares with the same market value, at ~$90 per share. Given Apple's history, his investment could double in only a few years. 

Obviously this is all completely speculatory, and Apple could crash and burn immediately after the split, but I don't think that's likely. Apple not only has strong consumer support and presence, they also have extremely good fundamentals, strong profits, and a huge amount of cash on hand. Apple still has a lot of room to grow, and I look forward to being a part of it. 

[trevxor-blog]

Robinhood

Welcome to Robinhood, the $0 commission stock brokerage. Stop paying up to $10 every time you trade.

I just happened upon this startup while looking at LOYAL3's facebook page, and am really excited about its potential. Similar to LOYAL3, it plans to offer commission-free trading by monetising in other ways (more information on their website). They're venture funded, and very open about the fact that they currently do not have a profit strategy, but plan to offer "premium services" in the future. There's currently a pretty significant waiting list (over 350,000 long at time of writing), so I probably won't get my invite anytime soon, but if this takes off, I definitely hope to expand my portolio beyond the curated list that LOYAL3 currently offers. 

Disclosure: The above link is a "referral" link. Using it instead of the homepage will move me and whoever uses it further up the waiting list. If you're uncomfortable, here's a non-referral link. 

[trevxor-blog]

UPDATE!

Hey! I know, it's been a while, but I had some life stuff happen so I've been a bit slow on purchases. However, since my last update, I've made a couple more investments. 

First, I put $70 into Microsoft at $39.38 a share. Microsoft is considerably behind it's peers in the tech sector when it comes to stock price, and I'm not really sure why. They're starting to emulate Apple and Google a bit more with their products and culture, and if successfull, their stock price could do the same. Even if it doesn't balloon up like the others, it's a pretty safe investment with a good dividend. 

And most recently, I put $50 into Apple at $605.86. This is a paltry investment by comparison to the share price, but I've wanted to invest in Apple for a while, and now that I can without having to spend the full price of a share with Loyal3, I figured why not. Apple saw a pretty sudden spike last month, breaking the $600 mark earlier this month. I'm obviously not hoping for a huge increase in value on this one, just stable. 

Also, I've started using Google Finance to monitor  my portfolio, as opposed to Yahoo!. With Google, I can input my actual portfolio, and watch the value of my investments change in real time. It also shows cost basis, market value of your individual investments, daily gain and overall return percentage. It's a very powerful tool, and I've only been using it for a few days. 

[trevxor-blog]

After a week of bearish markets, FTR finally climbed back up to where I bought it, and actually closed above the price I paid. It's only a $0.27 increase in value, but at my current state of investing, it's exciting to see the number go up instead of down, regardless of amount. 

[trevxor-blog]

Loyal3 Investment Platform

My first question when I decided to start investing, was "How?" It's not like you can just go to the store and buy stock in whatever company. How do you buy and sell stocks? The answer is through a broker, be it a real person, or online brokerage like Scottrade or e*trade. However, these services charge per-trade fees of $7-$10, which is just untenable for someone who's only got $50-$100 to invest at a time. That's how I discovered Loyal3. They promise "fee-free" investing, which is exactly what I wanted.

It's important to note that the reason Loyal3 is able to offer this service is because they don't operate like a traditional brokerage. Instead of buying and selling on an exchange, they partner with select companies to offer Direct Stock Purchase Plans to the public. This means that you can only invest in a somewhat small list of companies at the moment, and it can take several business days to actually execute a buy order (for example, I submitted an order at open of business Friday that was executed on Wednesday; 4 business days).

However, for someone just starting out, with very little capital, it's an easy way to dip your toes, especially for long-term investments. With a 4-5 day turn time, you wouldn't be able to flip a stock in time to make any big short-term gains. This is why I referred to Loyal3 as an "Investment Platform" and not a trading platform. They make it very easy to steadily add more capital over time, and even reinvest dividends automatically. I encourage anyone who wants to invest, but doesn't have "time or money" to get started, check it out.

[trevxor-blog]

My first purchase! I'm currently using income from an every-other-week part-time job for investing, so it's not much, but it's a start. I first heard about Frontier when browsing the front page of Yahoo Finance and saw this article from Seeking Alpha. I had done a bit of research, and decided that I wanted to begin my journey with stable investments that would pay off long term. The key to this was choosing a stock I could afford, with a good dividend that didn't look like it was going away anytime soon. Also, I believe in what Frontier is trying to do; provide quality broadband to a wider, more rural audience. As someone who grew up in a rural area, the day we got broadband was a big deal, and broadband for everyone is obviously the future. So here we are, with ~9 shares of FTR, with a 0.40 dividend and a ~7% yield. I'll probably be steadily putting more into FTR for the rest of the quarter, to see how much I can get before they announce their next dividend. After that, I will probably look into expanding into another company. 

[trevxor-blog]

Hello!

I've recently decided to take the plunge into investing, primarily in stocks for now. I'm going to use this blog to chronicle my journey to financial independence, with updates on my portfolio, why I'm investing the way I am, and links to stuff that I find interesting and helpful to beginners like me. Enjoy!