Buy Apple Now This is my first financial column for The Mac Observer. In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit (before dispensing any so called sage investment advise) several facts about myself. The first is that I have about 10 percent of my portfolio invested in Apple. The second is that my portfolio, once flying high, is down about 8 percent. The third is that said portfolio would look much worse this year except for the fact that Apple is up more than 180%, while everything else I own is down. Finally, I will admit that I am not a financial adviser by trade but a lowly part-time day trader who has seen many short term point skimmers become long term holds or worse yet, tax write-offs. So, am I qualified to write this column? Probably no more so than you are. In Dante’s Inferno those who "presume, while living, to predict future events..." are assigned to the eighth level of hell. There such seers are tormented by "having their faces reversed and set the contrary way on their limbs, so that, by being deprived of the power to see before them, they are constrained to walk backwards." Many investors wish a similar fate on their financial advisors since the recent downturn. May I suggest to those who would scan this column in search of investment advise to look at my point of view as just one more modest indicator, kind of like the odd-lots short sale index in the Investor’s Business Daily. After all I’m only privy to the same information sources that are available to us all. I don’t have Greenspan’s personal phone number and Steve, my man, isn’t returning my phone calls. My only advantage is that sans life I have gobs of free time to research this stuff, let it congeal on my G3, strain it through the rose colored glass of my profit mongering brain and serve it up as an informative quiche for you, the reader, as an entertaining, and perhaps, educational treat. All I can promise is that my facts, when present, will be accurate and double-checked. Note to all Mac fanatics: Although I am an advocate for a Mac-centric universe I am also inordinately fond of money, thus I can be cruelly impartial when evaluating the financial future of Mac oriented stocks, when I see a lemon, I’ll call it such. Fanaticism and capital gains rarely go hand in hand. And finally (drum roll please) my first piece of advice: Buy Apple stock now. It’s not going to get any cheaper in the next quarter. Apple’s fiscal year just ended last week; the numbers to be announced in early October are great. While the stock market as a whole shudders under wave after wave of monetary implosions from overseas, Apple is a safe bet for continued massive growth. Lots of money is fleeing the stock market to the safety of bonds or posterpedics. However, a lot of money will also be looking for the now few and far between high growth quality stocks, especially ones in the large American consumer market which isn’t going to be troubled by meltdowns in Asia or Russia, at least not ‘til after the Christmas sales. See ya’ next week, when I’ll enumerate the reasons Apple stock has only one way to go and I’ll get didactic about price/earning ratios.