"Boss, how should we invest next?" Swift, the new financial god in the eyes of Americans, asked respectfully.
"Continue to short," Huang He said, touching his nose.
"Then who should we short?" Swift continued to ask.
"Hmm, let's short Apple!" Huang He smiled.
"What!" Swift was stunned on the spot, looking at Huang He in disbelief. He never expected Huang He to make such a suggestion.
They had just pushed Apple's stock price to its peak, and now they were going to stab Apple in the back?
"Boss, what's going on?" Swift asked in a low voice.
"Apple's new iMac G4 is about to be officially launched this month, right?" Huang He said calmly.
"Yes, the board of directors has been notified, and Jobs guarantees that this will cause a sales surge!" Swift said.
"A surge of what nonsense, Apple is going to be finished this time!" Huang He cursed with a laugh.
In the eyes of future generations, Apple was basically synonymous with iPhones. However, Apple's main business was personal computers, which accounted for the vast majority of Apple's revenue.
Compared to the iMac, the profit of the iPod 4 was less than 60% of that of the iMac.
So why did the iPod 4 make Apple's stock price soar?
This was because Apple's research and development costs were high, and its operating costs were also high. The profit from the previous iMac was not enough to support Apple's costs, so Apple was basically losing money every year, and its stock price naturally could not rise.
It wasn't until the addition of the iPod 4 product line that this 60% profit allowed Apple to turn losses into profits, earning over a billion dollars, which naturally caused Apple's stock price to skyrocket.
However, if the sales of Apple's main revenue item, the iMac series computers, were to collapse, then Apple's profits would instantly collapse, and the entire Apple would have to return to being the Apple that lost money every year.
Swift had indeed become smarter. He quickly realized and said, "So, Boss, you think the new iMac this time will lead to a collapse?"
"It's not that the new iMac G4 will trigger a collapse this time, but the collapse has already begun. It was just masked by the sales of the iPod 4, but now, Apple can no longer hide it!" Huang He said calmly.
The iMac G4 was the latest iMac computer released last year. In August, the iMac would receive an upgrade, increasing the processors of two different iMac models to 1GHz and 1.4GHz respectively.
This was a very normal operation. After all, personal computers were not mobile phones that could launch a new model every year.
Apple's iMacs basically launched a new model every three years, meaning a complete update of the exterior and internal configuration, equivalent to changing from an iPhone 4 to an iPhone 5.
However, to maintain the competitiveness of its computers, Apple would also make minor updates to the iMac every year, upgrading some configurations without changing the exterior, equivalent to changing from an iPhone 4 to an iPhone 4s.
Soon, Apple would make such an update to the latest iMac G4, mainly adjusting the processor's functionality.
Since he had only invested in Apple for the past year, Swift's research on Apple was quite in-depth. He had read all the data from Apple's inception to the present. After all, Swift had served as Apple's chairman, and all kinds of confidential information were fully disclosed to him.
And according to past experience, a major update of the iMac could indeed lead to the collapse of the entire iMac series. After all, a major update involved significant changes to the exterior. Once the exterior did not match users' aesthetics, sales would instantly collapse.
However, minor updates had never led to the collapse of overall sales. After all, the main body had not changed, and only some internal configurations were adjusted. It was impossible to imagine that it would lead to a collapse!
"Let me ask you a question, do you think the iMac G4 is good-looking?" Huang He asked calmly.
"It's a bit ugly..." Swift said honestly. The iMac G4 was an all-in-one machine. The entire chassis was integrated into a hemispherical base, and then a display screen was attached to become the latest model in the iMac series. To put it simply, it looked a bit like a desk lamp.
This computer had been described by many marketing accounts in later generations as the most beautiful Apple ever, with claims of how beautiful this Apple computer was. The iMac G4 also had a group of loyal fans who praised its appearance, making it seem very beautiful.
However, at that time, most people unceremoniously described it as ugly.
"As you can see from the data, it's been a year and a half since it went on sale last year, but the sales in the latter year are less than 60% of the sales in the first half. Don't you think this is very dangerous?" Huang He said calmly.
Indeed, Swift had seen Apple's sales data. The iMac G4 sold a total of 1.28 million units in the first six months after its launch.
However, in the following year, it only sold 780,000 units, for a total sales of 2.06 million units.
This number seemed quite good, as the first-generation iMac G3 had a total sales of less than 4 million units to date.
However, anyone with eyes could see that this was problematic. The impressive sales of the iMac G4 in the first six months after its launch were clearly boosted by the previous generation G3, which attracted many fans to buy the G4.
The subsequent drop in sales in the following year could only mean that the G4 was not popular in actual market sales, at least not as popular as the G3.
It should be noted that the G3 still had sales of 1.06 million units in its last year of sales, which was 2001.
In the first six months of its initial launch, sales were less than 500,000. The sales curve of the entire G3 was undoubtedly a positive upward curve, completely opposite to the current G4.
In this way, the outlook for the iMac G4 was extremely worrying.
"I think Jobs must have realized this problem, so he upgraded the chip's processing power in the latest new version G4 while keeping the price the same, hoping to use this to open up the market for the iMac G4. However, I am certain that this is just a drop in the bucket and cannot save the iMac G4. On the contrary, it might push the iMac G4 into the abyss!" Huang He said, tapping on the table.
"Therefore, I am certain that Apple's stock price will fall in the future, by more than 40%. Although it will not be as terrifying as Yahoo, it may take about half a year, but it will definitely fall. You can continue to short Apple and still make over a billion dollars!" Huang He said.
"I understand!" Swift nodded and then continued, "But Boss, Apple's current total market value is only about 40 billion US dollars. I can't use all of my more than 30 billion to short Apple. This will instantly crush Apple. I can only use 5 billion to short Apple at most. Any more than that is not possible!"
"I know!" Huang He nodded. "For the rest of the money, you should diversify your investments into those large oil stocks!"
"Oil stocks? Aren't these stocks in a state of rapid decline?" Hearing Huang He's words, Swift asked confusedly again.
Oil stocks were highly volatile in 2003 because the stock prices of oil companies were basically tied to international oil prices.
When international oil prices rose, oil stock prices rose. When international oil prices fell, oil stocks followed. Sometimes there might be differences, but most of the time, this rule was consistent.
In February 2003, the United States announced its intervention in Iraq, officially launching the Iraq War.
Because Iraq was one of the major oil-producing countries, and also a country with a large output, due to the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq, the United States and other Western countries introduced an oil-for-food program, which only allowed Iraq to exchange oil for food to maintain the lives of its citizens.
Therefore, Iraq had no choice but to produce a large amount of oil to sustain the country.
Then the United States launched the Iraq War, Iraq's crude oil exports immediately stopped, and there was a large gap in international crude oil. As a result, within a week, international oil prices rose by more than $10, from $20 a barrel to $30 a barrel, and then continued to rise, reaching a peak of $45 a barrel, doubling international oil prices.
The doubling of international oil prices naturally led to a surge in oil stocks worldwide. After all, with the same output, the selling price increased, and the profits of all companies increased. It would be strange if they didn't rise.
Therefore, if someone bought oil stocks in February 2003 and held them until May before selling them, their lives would have achieved a perfect comeback, and their personal assets would have at least tripled.
However, by May 2003, international oil prices began to fall sharply. Within a month, they plummeted to around $26 a barrel, and then oil stocks began to fall all the way.
The reason was that the United States was powerful and occupied all of Iraq's territory in just over two months. At the same time, they announced the end of the Iraq War and the resumption of Iraq's oil facilities and the oil-for-food program to provide food for the Iraqi people.
As a result, crude oil prices quickly began to fall. Because the war ended quickly, only a small portion of Iraq's oil facilities were damaged, and most of them were still intact and could be restarted in a short period. The market generally believed that Iraq would soon resume oil production.
Moreover, in order to restore the economy, oil production would increase, and international oil prices would definitely fall.
Therefore, oil stocks continued to decline until now, basically falling back to the level of early February. Although the price fluctuations in five months were astonishing, creating many rich people and many leeks, they ultimately returned to their starting point for nothing.
Even according to the current trend, there was a possibility of further decline, but Huang He actually asked him to invest in oil stocks, which was somewhat unexpected for Swift.
This was unscientific!
"The United States will soon announce to the outside world that they will hand over Iraq's oil facilities to the local people in batches..." Huang He said calmly, uttering a shocking piece of news!