by JW (when we do an additional post on the same day, we’ll give it the informal JW)

I remember it well.

It was the summer of 2013, August I believe, when billionaire Carl Icahn came out in defense of Apple stock. Shares of Apple (AAPL) had dipped to below $400 a share that summer after flirting with the $700 ceiling the year before. Steve Jobs had only been dead less than two years, the iPad was, if not a flop, turning out not to be the game-changer the iPod or iPhone had been.

People wondered, and not for the first time, if the Apple empire was beginning to crumble.

And then Icahn (whose own surname sounds as if it could be an Apple product) appeared on CNBC and bullishly defended Apple’s stock. He said he’d be buying up loads of it.

Well, seven summer later Apple’s stock price is hovering at about $450 per share but—hold your water, Susie B., I’m coming to it—that is after the 7-for-1 stock split. In other words, in the past seven years the value of Apple stock has increased seven-fold.

So here we are on August 14th, 2020. Shares of Apple will split 4-for-1 at the end of the month. I guess you may want to ask yourself, Is my portfolio up seven-fold since August of 2013? If it is, good for you. And while I’m not advocating any specific play in the market, it’s just something upon which to ruminate. Where will Apple stock be seven years from now? Where will we be? Will Medium Happy finally achieve a consistent fourth commenter, or is that simply too much to hope for?