Apple Inc. (AAPL: 161.93, -6.23, -3.7%) fell 3.7% to $161.93 after American Technology Research analyst Shaw Wu cut his rating on the stock to neutal from buy on valuation concerns,” Rex Crum reports for MarketWatch.
Crum reports, “Apple reports its second-quarter results after the market closes Wednesday.”
Full article here.
Michael Patterson reports for Bloomberg, “Apple Inc. fell for the first time in seven days after American Technology Research said the maker of the iPhone may not beat earnings estimates enough to boost the stock.”
Full article here.
The analysts giveth (Cramer yesterday) and the analysts taketh away (Wu today).
It’s amazing how much power they (undeservedly) wield.
It makes no frikken sense. All analysts had increased Apple’s share valuations but ONE guy casts doubts and BOOM, a handful of chickenshit investors run for cover.
Oh well. it will bounce back.
Go Habs go ….sorry Boston fans.
All analysts are not equal.
It is in part the fault of panicky investors. The main reason we see these huge swings though is because of the elimination of the downtick rule. You can thank the idiots who run the SEC for that. The stock market is now run by hedge funds who can control the price of a companies stock by simply shorting large numbers of shares.
It’s quite simple. The stock has run up for no reason. Big institutional investors are taking some profit.
And people take the stock market seriously… why, exactly?
If it’s this easy to manipulate it, does it really mean anything?
Reminds me of Drew Carey’s catchphrase from the improv show “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” – the stock market seems like a game “where everything is made up and the points don’t matter.”
It’s hard not to believe that the stock market is a scam.
I mean, it’s like its formulated to bring quick money to a bunch of assholes. If you bought a few thousand shares on Monday morning and sold them late on Tuesday, you just made more money than some people can make in a year.
And all you’d have to do to pull it off is know a couple of analysts.
It’s fishy. Maybe even downright poopy.
In some ways, I wish the really moronic, panicky investors would drop this stock down to $100 so I could really load up. I WILL make money from AAPL this time. Only wish I’d have purchased at the $13-$19 range back in the pre-split days. Considering Apple still has single digit marketshare and the upcoming iPhone SDK will force developers to buy Macs if they want to develop, the shareprice is STILL potentially cheap.
I wouldn’t listen to any of these guys except Gene Munster – he is the only one consistently right and really “gets it”.
Shaw Wu is dead to me now. He is tarnishing the good name of Shaw. Tsk. Tsk.
Plus, somebody along the line misspelled “neutral” so actually, Wu’s rating for AAPL is “Neutal” Which maybe means that it can no longer breed with other stocks? A little help here?
@dd,
I advised my dad to buy Apple around Christmas time 2003 when it was $22. He didn’t and regrets it tremendously.
Now, if I only had money to invest in Apple, I would have back then or now, even.
So Wu missed out on his chance to get a 5% gain…. so now he will purchase a boat load of stocks in probably a few hours then we can watch it jump up and he will report it’s a time to buy and not neutral.
@Cubert
Yup. Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda…
It’s unlikely that Apple will make me a hundred thousandaire now, but at least they can buy my next couple computers for me. 😀
Waiting for $200+ to sell a few shares.
He probably just wants to deflate the shares today so he can buy them up for tomorrow’s blowout earnings…
@ mr_matalino
agreed!!!!
“may not beat earnings estimates enough”
Wtf!? So not only do you have to beat estimates, but let’s add another layer and make you beat it enough.
Good grief…
relax folks, that’s called a technical reaction. people take some profits after one week of climbs. P/E is a little bit high at the moment (33) until that same clueless analysts will discover that apple will post profits of more than $6 a share this year and $8 next year. they will than adjust their price targets to 220-270 for the next 12 months. i have been holding the stock through all the downturns since 2003 and i am doing fine. just don’t look at the damn shareprice every day and apple will make you rich. i don’t plan to sell my stocks bevor 2011 and if apple can keep the momentum even later. at the moment it seems the sky is the limit if even the business world is starting to consider apple-hardware. in 2 years apple will have 35 billion on the bank (they add roughly 2 billion a quarter), they will rule media distribution all over the world (iTunes), sell 50 million phones a year (+ 50 million iPods) and 15 million macs. wooah, i am getting rich!!
Maybe it makes sense to buy low and then when the stock charges up, sell at the end of the day, because some yahoo analyst is going to pull a Wu and the stock will drop. At the end of the day, buy the stock back. The next day another Cramer will cause the stock to charge up again. or you could just do what I did and buy “fairly” low and then enjoy the roller coaster ride and ignore your stocks. It will not affect you if it goes: 161,168,165,174,165,161,164,155,140,154,160,173,185. you went from 161 to 185. As long as you left it alone. The fact remains, WE understand Apple. Analysts DON’T understand Apple, which explains the roller coaster. So either sit tight, or play the analysts, keeping what you know about Apple in mind, as well as what you know the analysts DON’T understand in mind too.
One month ago, AAPL was at around $130. Yesterday, it was around $168. The point is, this stock price already rose on the expectations that the earnings report will beat estimates of the Street. Now, it is dipping because they won’t beat the estimates as high as some have predicted. Essentially, over 20% in one month is not a bad run-up to an earnings report for any stock, let alone a large-cap blue-chip, reporting in a recession economy. I’m fine with $160. I’ll be fine even with $150 tonight (or tomorrow). 3G iPhone is coming (clearly), and it will drive AAPL back to $190, there is no doubt. Whoever has it, hold on to it. If you don’t have it, you got two options:
1. Risky: buy now at $160;
2. Wait until tomorrow and buy t $175 (or $145, depending on what happens tonight at 5 EDT).
Of course, you can sit this one out on the sidelines and watch it go back to $190 again.
Look at the WHOLE market. It’s ALL down.
Ralph is right. Just wish I had more money to use when the share price was below 120. Whenever the price goes down, it is a buy. Buy low and enjoy the roller coaster, ’cause it is going to end on the up, no matter how good the ride is.
Wasn’t Shaw the brainwashed guy from “The Manchurian Candidate”? Maybe this Shaw is being brainwashed by Gates and Ballmer.
“How about a nice game of solitaire?”
mr_matalino
He probably just wants to deflate the shares today so he can buy them up for tomorrow’s blowout earnings…
Monday – sell
Tuesday – buy
Wednesday – sell
Thursday – count Moolah $$$$$
I’m with dd, go down AAPL, DOWN I say! I want to buy more at $100, or even at $99. Analysts be damned. Last price drop I switched from a nice, stable, conservative stock to AAPL and have seen about a $3,000 shift in values for my efforts. That’s 20%, or so. I have more money I’d like to throw that way, but not north of $150 … though I expect the stock to reach $200 by the end of the year.
Shaw Wu is missing a few indicators – or I am. I expect the iPhone to make some progress in its niche – smartphones – starting in July. I expect Macs to make more progress in THEIR niche – top quartile of personal computers, including Enterprise purchases – as the year rolls on. He doesn’t see this growth. His loss, I expect.
I am a Systems Administrator and I am waiting for 2nd Gen iPhone so I can buy one. That, along with 3rd party software (like Cisco VPN client) is going to make it possible for me to use it for work. Actually, work will agree to buy it for me at that point. There are a lot of Execs that have not purchased iPhones because they couldn’t work with the corporate network and their Sys Admins said no. As soon as the iPhone has a VPN client that works with our VPN servers, that will change and the Execs will start buying iPhones, since Corporate Execs like “being cool”. That is also why the Macbook Air is doing well with execs.
To me, that means that Apple is going to start making more headway into the corporate world and sales will increase. Just a matter of time.
Personally, I don’t think that the likes of Wu understand what the iPhone OS being Leopard really means. If you guys can hang on, I’d be happy for the stock to drop a fair amount so I can buy more. It will be going up anyway.