Filed under: Retail, Apple Financial
Retail experience draws women to AAPL?
Piqqem, a service that crowdsources stock picks, has some interesting demographic data about who says they're buying AAPL. Among female users, Apple is the most highly rated stock to buy.
The lowest-rated stock is Dillards -- which leads to an interesting analysis by Alex Salkever, director of research and marketing at Piqqem. He says that focused specialty retailers are better at weathering the economic downturn so far than large department stores.
"And while Apple has seen sales growth in its chain stores level off, I submit that a big reason why Apple has held strong is due to the attraction its products, stores, and services hold to women beyond the teenage years," he writes.
Personally, I think linking womens' stock choice specifically to the retail experience falls somewhere between a little chauvinist and a little short-sighted. AAPL is also the most popular stock among all of Piqqem's users, for example. It certainly can't hurt Apple's business, though, to appeal to women, teens, and other key demographics with disposable income right now.
Many analysts point to Apple's strong cash position as reason enough to buy AAPL. Indeed, Apple's stock price has recovered some since Macworld, and is trading around $98 a share. It's certainly shy of their 52-week high of $192 a share, but it's well off their 52-week low of $78.20.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Gazoobee said 12:43PM on 2-11-2009
Can I just point out the complete idiocy of talking about "what women like" when there is no comparison to any other demographic group? Neither here nor in the original article does it mention if there is any difference, or what difference in "what men like" (or any other group). Total fail on logic.
Even if there was a difference between the sexes that is not elucidated here, how big of a difference is it?
Finally, there is no filter for empirically "good" or "bad" stocks. Apple stock is arguably one of the best smartest buys out there today. How significant is it that "women buy Apple," when it's actually the smart thing to do? Isn't this rather the expected result?
Again, there is no data and no comparison being made here so we really don't know, but even if we infer from the author that "men don't buy Apple," or that "men buy less Apple stock than women," shouldn't the story really be about why the heck men are so foolish, and not about women per se at all?
These stories that tech guys write about "what their wives like" are droll, uninformed and old-fashioned at best. Pandering to this kind of dreck by re-publishing it here (completely unexamined) is perhaps a waste of everyone's time.
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Gazoobee said 2:55PM on 2-11-2009
My apologies to Rober Palmer, I missed this part:
"Personally, I think linking womens' stock choice specifically to the retail experience falls somewhere between a little chauvinist and a little short-sighted. "
Good for you for seeing the bias in the original article.
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rapidzombie said 4:57AM on 2-12-2009
Just proves what I've always known: Women jump to conclusions without knowing the full extent of information. Men do it too, but I've noticed it far more amongst my female peers.
Don't get me wrong, I respect women.. but the above is just something I've observed.
Alex Salkever said 10:11PM on 2-17-2009
Robert, thanks for the post. We didn't mean the comment to be chauvinist but rather thought-provoking. It is an interesting juxtaposition that Macy's is potentially going into bankruptcy and most department stores are on the rocks. Since women control the majority of shopping dollars in this country, their sentiments actually count for more than the overall sample size. As it happens, the top rated stock for men that use www.piqqem.com is Apple but the bottom rated stock is Simon Property Group, an owner of shopping malls. Funny, huh? In a nutshell, short the mall. But if you want to call me a chauvinist for pointing out that women like Mac products (I converted my personal focus group of one roughly two years ago and we are now a no-Windoze household), guilty as charged. :)
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iphonerulez said 4:12PM on 2-11-2009
I heard an analyst say something like what's the point of Apple keeping such a large horde of cash since it's not doing anything for the stock. Aside from the fact with such a bundle of cash it's not going out of business any time soon, but other than that, so what.
Do a large percentage of women actually buy stock?
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Luna Lovegood said 8:08AM on 2-12-2009
$98 is "shy of" $192 and "well off" $78? Wow.
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Icelander said 10:02AM on 2-12-2009
I don't think it's misinformed or emotional to judge a company on their retail experience. I've not had one good experience with Circuit City, and look where they are. Having a good experience in the stores leads to higher sales, which leads to better profits. Plus, if a company can make a good retail experience in hundreds of stores, they've obviously got the management chops to succeed, or at least a large pool of good managers to draw from.
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