What if, instead of buying the newest iPhone every time Apple released one, you bought the same money Apple shares?
There is one in circulation tweet which says if you bought Apple stock instead of an iPhone every time they come out, you'd have hundreds millions dollars. The math going around right now (i.e. if you spent $20k in Apple stock when the iPhone rumors first started) you'd have $1,5 million today, at best, but only if you were clairvoyant in 2007, and knew when Apple would release phones and in which price.
A fairer way to calculate the first assumption is below (buy the latest iPhone model every time Apple releases one, or spend the same amount on Apple stock.
If you had, you would have spent about $16.000 buying all the new iPhones over the years. If you had bought Apple stock, you'd have about $147.000 today — or a profit of about $131.000.
Apple's stock price has risen significantly since the launch of the original iPhone. The chart above includes stock fluctuations. Image: from MacroTrends.
