Ah, another Fund manager trying to scream "Pay attention to MEEEE!" Wouldn't be surprised if they're out of work in 12 months, WITHOUT any direct relation to whatever Apple's stock price does.
Contrary to what he's trying to fool people into thinking, the P/E ratio doesn't correlate to price growth... It correlates to ACTUAL PRICE. And no, it doesn't correlate 1-to-1, since there's also the question of predicted stability of a company, their volume, as well as the value of their assets. And Apple's assets have not actually grown; they've just gotten more tight-fisted over the past decade, so their profit margin went up.
A strong example: we'll look at Fortune #2, Walmart. They have an ABYSMAL P/E ratio: about 3.6%; Apple's is around two hundred times that. So why is the company the second-most valued one around, and often trades places for #1? Well, they DO happen to have way more in assets than Apple, (and most of Apple's is just stock they can sale, and hence inflated with their stock price) and more importantly, around quadruple the total revenue that Apple has.
If anything, Apple's severely over-valued here, as everyone's been saying: It's a kind of self-feeding loop: higher stock prices inflate the company's value, which then boosts their stock prices, etc. It could almost be a bubble here.
The other part of Apple's growth that should be noticed is their market share and the market's saturation. Apple has pretty much shown that they CAN'T take market share from other companies in an existing market: they have to effectively invent (more of introduce to new audiences) new markets to stake out a share that they'll hold onto. Without that "new market growth," Apple's volume has been rather stagnant.
And in the coming years, this means that, with these new markets exhausted, they won't be able to fuel any more growth. (before any Apple fanboys interrupt, no, not a single time has Apple introduced a product that hadn't already been mildly-known among enthusiasts first... The MP3 player, smartphones, tablets, etc... Were all well-known before Apple slapped an "i" at the front of the names) Furthermore, Apple's volume here is SHRINKING on all fronts: While still dominant in tablets, their share is being chipped away at by tons of competitors, with each new round being more and more threatening, and less laughable. They've fallen to a minority in the smartphone market, and are being pushed back to a minority as Android grows. And while no one's threatening their MP3 player share, that market ITSELF is shrinking, due to over-saturation, and the product's role being subsumed by smartphones. (in other words, the iPhone's cannibalizing the iPod)
Even without the loss of Steve Jobs and his legendary Reality Distortion Field, Apple's decline would still happen. With Steve Jobs gone, this decline is even more assured. My prediction? (since I'm every bit as qualified as a Fund manager, after all; that's not saying much) Apple's stock won't plummet, but we'll see a deflation as their market share and volume erodes. Their total year 2012 price will likely drop down below the $300US mark, and never go back above that again. It'll head towards the $200US mark, but won't hit that until 2013. Prices will likely stabilize somewhere between the $75-150US range.
In other words, I'd not be buying Apple stock... But it'd take too long to be worth Shorting either.
/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P/E_ratio
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