Apple’s trillion-dollar market cap, Tesla going private, super funds behaving badly. What does it all mean for investors? (3:15 min read)

This information does not take into account your personal objectives, financial situation or needs. You should consider if the relevant investment is appropriate having regard to your own objectives, financial situation and needs.

 

1. Apple’s road to a trillion

Apple’s stock price has increased over 20% in 2018, helping the company reach a trillion-dollar milestone. It’s attracted all kinds of media attention since Apple became the first American company to be valued at more than US$1 trillion.

To put the valuation into perspective, just picture the ASX – Apple isn’t too far off the value of our entire share market.

What does it mean if you’re invested in Apple?

For investors who have held Apple shares over the last couple of decades, it has been a very good investment.

It was just over 20 years ago when Steve Jobs returned to run Apple, the company was on the brink of bankruptcy and only valued at US$3 billion.

Since that time, Apple has completely transformed and disrupted multiple industries from computing, music, smartphones and even watches.

In the next 20 years, if Apple can even achieve half of what it has achieved in the past 20 years, it could continue to be a great investment.

What does it mean if you’re invested with AtlasTrend?

Apple is an investment within some of our managed funds.

What we particularly like about Apple is the fact its products and services are essential to hundreds of millions of users around the world.

This provides Apple with an incredible amount of data, which allows them to intimately understand user behaviour – providing a huge competitive advantage for the design and build of future Apple products.

 

2. Tesla has had enough of being public

Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced he is considering delisting Tesla from the stock market and taking the company private at $420 per share.

If the transaction proceeds, it would value Tesla at US$71 billion.

What does this mean if you’re invested in Tesla?

Tesla shareholders would have made some money as the stock price increased by over 10% when the news first came out.

However, despite Elon Musk saying that the deal has funding secured, there are still question marks over whether it will proceed.

Musk himself has said discussions are continuing with the Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund responsible for funding for the transaction.

Until a firm proposal is on the table, it’s unlikely Tesla’s stock price will reach anywhere close to $420 per share.

What does this mean if you’re invested with AtlasTrend?

AtlasTrend’s managed funds are not currently invested in Tesla.

We can empathise with Musk considering taking Tesla private; as a high-growth company trying to disrupt an entire industry, the path to success is never linear.

Having to report operational performance to the stock market every quarter arguably doesn’t help the company focus on its long-term goals.

 

3. Royal Commission tackles super

The Royal Commission into the financial services sector has recently started examining Australia’s multi-trillion-dollar superannuation industry.

As a result, some large superannuation funds have been publicly exposed for their questionable practices.

What does this mean if you have a super account?

Chances are you are one of the 14.8 million people in Australia with some form of superannuation.

Some of the questionable activities exposed at the Royal Commission include funds charging fees for services not provided, and advertising claims of low fees, when in fact, this was not the case.

Whether these are isolated cases or symptomatic of issues in the wider superannuation industry remains to be seen.

What does this mean if you’re invested with AtlasTrend?

We believe retail superannuation is ripe for disruption to tackle some of the issues identified at the Royal Commission.

If consumers dig a bit deeper, they might also find many superannuation funds are investing their money in industries and companies that don’t align with their personal values.

At AtlasTrend, investors have the opportunity to choose to invest in a trend that accords with their own personal values and what they believe in.

Wouldn’t it be nice if superannuation funds invested your hard-earned money in a way that not only helped build your retirement wealth, but also contributed to building a world you’d feel comfortable retiring in? Try asking your superannuation fund about that and you’ll probably get a blank stare.

 

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