Hang on to these tech leaders

Article Excerpt

These two tech firms continue to dominate their main markets. However, we feel their shares will make only limited progress over the next few months. APPLE INC. $117 (Nasdaq symbol AAPL; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 5.3 billion; Market cap: $620.1 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.9; Dividend yield: 1.9%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.apple.com) gets about 60% of its revenue from its iPhone smartphone. The remaining 40% comes from sales of its Mac computers, iPad tablets, iPod music players and Apple watches as well as the software, movies and music sold through its online stores. The company sold 45.4 million iPhones in its fiscal 2016 fourth quarter, ended September 24, 2016. That’s down 5.3% from 48.0 million a year earlier. Sales of Mac computers also fell, but iPad sales were flat. As a result, Apple’s overall sales declined 9.0%, to $46.9 billion from $51.5 billion a year earlier. Earnings dropped 19.0%, to $9.0 billion from $11.1 billion. Due to fewer shares…