On the other hand few companies could have achieved such growth and it seems better to go with winners.
I'm not an expert at reading financial statements but it seems to me Apple could easily double their dividends and still be very profitable relative to other companies.
Surely moves like that should have some effect on stock price meaning there are more possibilities than "grow gross profits" or "worth less"
Apple has a PE of ~34, so that is ~3%. 30 year treasury bonds are averaging ~4% right now. So yeah, Apple would be a abysmal long term investment if you assume they do not continue to grow. Anything with a PE over 25 at this time must grow to be worth the investment.
my dumber answer is "only if dividends and buybacks exceed profit sustainably", which is an oxymoron eschewing extreme circumstances (taking on debt at that you won't pay back, or being offered debt at 0% interest despite the fact you're giving it away)
There's lots from there (ex. couldn't we pull that off? Bank doesn't know we're liquidating if we don't tell them) -- in general the abstraction finance uses is "is the rate of return higher than bonds?", which of course is true in the short run in this extreme of a scenario, but unlikely in the long run
- historical long-term PE ratio is 15
- lets bump it to 20
- lets bump it again to 25
- Apple is at 33
- either it grows gross profits (33/25) 32%, or its worth 32% less than it is now.
- revenue has been flat since late 2021
- gross profits have been flat since late 2021 and approximate ceiling of 27% achieved in 2012
- if we skip just one unprincipled bump, we're looking at 65% increase required in gross profits.
- "long term investor" is handwaving, not a virtue, thesis, or principle. it doesn't mean anything here other than "I strongly believe Apple can double sales while maintaining or growing profit margin" or "can the timeline be longer please? because on a long enough timeline I'll be right"