I've been watching Apple for a long time. Never as a shareholder, because I've never been comfortable buying it at the prices it trades at. But as an observer of how markets value simplicity and brand power, the company is always worth paying attention to.

Right now, Apple's stock looks expensive. Not just a little rich. Expensive in a way that should make anyone buying shares today think hard about what they're actually paying for. The Motley Fool recently laid out the case that the stock may have peaked, and the valuation math backs up the concern.

Apple has historically traded at a premium to the broader market. That makes sense. It is a remarkably profitable business with a loyal customer base and an ecosystem that keeps people locked in. You pay up for quality. But there is a difference between a reasonable premium and a price that assumes everything goes perfectly forever.

The price-to-earnings ratio sits well above where it has spent most of the last decade. When I started investing in the late '80s, paying 30 times earnings for a consumer hardware company would have sounded absurd. Times change. Growth expectations change. But the math underneath the decision doesn't. Are you getting enough future earnings to justify what you pay today?

With Apple, the growth story has gotten more complicated. iPhone revenue still drives the business, and upgrade cycles are lengthening. Services revenue is growing, which is good, but the market seems to be pricing in a level of AI-driven growth that has yet to show up in any meaningful way in the financials. That gap between expectations and current reality is where investors get hurt.

I'm not predicting a crash. Apple is too profitable and too entrenched for that. But paying top dollar when the growth narrative is shifting is a risk that most individual investors don't need to take. You can get Apple exposure through a broad index fund without making a concentrated bet at a peak valuation.

The investors I worry about are the ones who buy because the stock has been going up and assume it always will. That's not a strategy. That's momentum dressed up as conviction. I've watched people do this with great companies since the 1990s. The companies often survive just fine. The shareholders who bought at the wrong price sit underwater for years.

If you already own Apple through a fund, do nothing. If you're thinking about buying shares because they feel safe, run the numbers first. The business is fine. The stock price is the question.

As always, I'm sharing perspective, not professional financial advice. Talk to a qualified advisor before making investment decisions.