Why I’ve been shorting AAPL

(and plan on continuing)

Some years ago, I was bike commuting through downtown Seattle on my way back home. While stopped at a traffic light, I glanced across an open lot at the side of a sizeable concrete parking structure. Occupying much of the middle was a giant advertising billboard hosting an Apple ad. It was simple. An iPad and an iPad Mini, side by side, each displaying the same music app, each with a human finger touching a virtual piano key on each respective screen.

In the upper right corner, the universally recognizable company logo and the product name. iPad.

It was one of the original ads for the mini. That was 5 ½ years ago. I snapped a photo with my corporate-supplied iPhone, and this is what I wrote in my subsequent Facebook post:

You mean I can do the same thing with this one that I can with this one? The app is the exact same and everything? And the device is the same and everything, except only smaller? And I can even use the same finger??? Holy s$&@!!!

A friend responded that they couldn’t go a day without seeing the same ad five or six times. That was the first moment that things really started to turn for…