What If You Bought Apple Stock Instead of The Apple Product?

Back in November 11, 1997, Apple released the Apple PowerBook G3 250. The then state of the art notebook cost a whopping $5,700. Expensive yes, but it made you the envy (or laughing stock) of your friends for awhile. Today, a PowerBook G3 isn’t good for much more than a paperweight.

What if, instead of spending that $5,700 on a new Apple product in 1997, you put the money into Apple (AAPL) stock instead? If you did that, you wouldn’t have a paperweight today but you would be sitting on over $330,000 of Apple stock!

Kyle Conroy has put together a little graph showing what would have happened had you purchased the AAPL instead of the many products Apple launched over the years. It’s pretty fascinating stuff.

Last month, I made a post saying I purchased a large block of Apple shares when the iPad went on pre-order. I picked up those shares at an average price of $224.

Last Tuesday at 9AM, I purchased another block of AAPL at an average price of $245. At 5PM the same day, Apple announced record breaking earnings that blew everyone away. The next day, the stock went to $260. Apple closed at $270.83 on Friday.

While I am really happy Apple iPad owner, I am an ever happier Apple shareholder. My advice: buy the product and the stock!