“Blame Duncan Riley,” Philip Elmer-DeWitt reports for Fortune.
“Last Wednesday, he posted an ‘exclusive’ on his blog — The Inquisitr — under the headline: ‘Apple to launch $800 laptop.’ Although his scoop was unsourced, the news that Apple was set to announce its cheapest notebook computer ever was picked up by Apple blogs and mainstream publications around the world — including the New York Times. Bernstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi even published a spreadsheet calculating how much an $800 laptop would increase Apple’s available market,” Elmer-DeWitt reports.
“So when Steve Jobs unveiled Apple’s new line of laptops on Tuesday with starting prices of $1,299 for the MacBook and $1,999 for the MacBook Pro, you could almost hear the sound of Apple’s (AAPL) shares falling,” Elmer-DeWitt reports. “What this means is that Apple is not — with one exception — lowering prices in order to grow its market share… The one exception is the original white MacBook — the best-selling MacBook ever, according to Jobs — which sold for $1,099 when it was introduced two years ago and will now sell for $999.”
“‘Apple is very good at pricing,’ says Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis for The NPD Group, who believes Apple was right to hold the prices of the new MacBooks steady. ‘They haven’t run out of headroom yet. I expect they will eventually find a way to build out a line that will come in at $799, but they’ll do it in their own way and at their own pace,'” Elmer-DeWitt reports.
Full article here.
OR maybe that the entire NASDAQ rally has fizzled today could be the reason.
I find it a little hard to believe that the entire investment community watches Steve’s keynotes and makes buying and selling decisions based on price points.
Macromancer… you beat me to it. The whole stock market is shaky.
“Sometimes you hit the bar, and sometime the bar hits you.”
The Dude abides.
FSCK-ing ANALysts are the death of our free market.
Dishits with blogs and “news”
Oh if AlGore was dead, he’d be turning in his grave…
I might be mistaken…but it seems to me that Steve announced the $999 MacBook plastic version. While it is not the aluminum and glass, the MacBook line starts lower than $1299.
and of course, turned out the 899 price point was for the new LED cinema display… damn rumormongers!
“Apple stock for a loop”
does that make it a fruit loop?….
Today’s drop of AAPL is a little bit of both; all the market indices started high and went down from there, finishing the day submerged. Tech much more so than the rest. AAPL, with its high Beta, had a more pronounced swings, ending down som 6%. A year ago, such a daily move (in either direction) would be enormous; these days, when DOW can tack on 10% in a single day (or lose as much), 6% no longer generates news reports.
In general, it has been a habit of AAPL to go down on the day of Steve’s keynote, so today wasn’t much different. For AAPL share holders, we have the earnings report coming up shortly, which has some chance of lifting the stock up. While normally it tanks after they announce low guidance, October may be an exception, since they may guide well for the December quarter. They did last year and stock took off. But then again, last year, we sill had Washington Mutual and Lehman Brothers doing business as usual…
In all, these are only temporary speed bumps in the AAPL pps. They went up a bit on the rumor and went down a bit on the news. Unless you are trying to time an entry or exit into the stock, it won’t make much of a long term impact. Further, we have a week until earnings, which will have a much larger and longer lasting impact.
And had the price been announced as low as rumored, we’d be hearing fretting about how lower profit margins might reduce revenue.
The Apple Store refurb page has the White MacBook for $849 (but it has a combo drive instead of a SuperDrive). No doubt that price will drop to $799 before Apple is done selling them as refurbs.
Consumers will let Apple know with their wallets this holiday season as to whether the company can keep doing what it did to consumers and its base today.
Actual the price of AAPL is in line with the market today. Investors don’t follow product pricing. There has been some profit taking in the market today, and Profit taking on AAPL as well. Some of the stock blocks that sold last week for under $100.00 have been re sold for a profit. The Shorts have been on the sideline with Apple sp far today, which has allowed the stock to remain over $100.00.
AAPLs earns report is scheduled on Tuesday 10-21-08 at 2PM, This is going to be the big indicator on how investors feel about Apple Strategy for the going Christmas Quarter and for weathering the Economic down turn.
I think Apple is going to do what the did last time innovate their way through the down with little to no reduction in sales or growth. If they can make it on that strategy I think we’ll witness a major revolution in Apple’s business.
The Questions are can Dell survive? Will Microsoft dump their Software Businesses in pursuit of beating Google or will they abandon dreams of out doing Google? What other software companies will be borged by Oracle? What new innovative tech does Apple have up it’s sleeve for Mac World 2009? Can AAPL prop up the entire Tech sector for the next few years?
For answers to these burning Questions and much, much more stay glued to the internet.
Today Apple did a milestone and dipped below a grand with their super selling laptop. $799 is a pure Fortune fantasy, and the guy who wrote the article should apologize for writing something so ignorant.
I’m ready to track down the bloggers and the wack-job analysts that establish baseless rumors about Apple that has added to AAPL stock volatility – and give them a good swift kick in the nuts.
Did anyone else notice that all the new notebooks have an option for a glare-free screen (not matte, though)?
Take that anti-glossy crusaders!
And, stop polluting our forums!
Tell him what you think.
Go to his blog:
http://www.inquisitr.com/4834/exclusive-apple-to-launch-800-laptop/
And rate the article ONE STAR.
Show these fuckers that they need to source and research their “rumors”.
The fact that the MacBook now lacks firewire cuts off millions of potential buyers who own firewire-based video cameras.
Unless there is something I’m missing here, I believe this decision to abandon firewire on the most popular Mac is just a plain bad decision.
a $2000 MBPRO?????? WTF. Come on Apple!. I predict that in 2010 the price of the next MBPRO will actually go be $2500
The Mac Tablet will be below the $999 MacBook and above the iPod touch. I am looking to see it in the $400 to $800 range.
If there was a $800 MacBook, why would you limit yourself and get a smaller screen. Apple needs about a $200 spreed between the 2 product lines.
Have to say it, price points are too high, it will show up very soon in the Apple share numbers, schools and students (college) are going to be priced out due to housing market fiasco. Schools due to falling tax revenues and students due to loss of home equity and student loans.
Apple hasn’t assessed the impact in the consumer market from the financial melt down over the last 2 weeks.
Hey, don’t overlook the fact that this white MacBook now will sell for just $899 with a standard, 10% student/teacher or corporate discount! It’s not the $799 price many of us hoped for, but it is closer to that $799 price point and a considerable drop for Apple.
It wasn’t just that AAPL was following the NASDAQ in exaggerated fashion. Instead, as soon as the $999 announcement was made, the stock dropped noticeably in relation to the market. You can see this on the daily chart on MarketWatch by comparing the trendline of NASDAQ to AAPL, here (click on “Compare AAPL to Nasdaq”):
http://www.marketwatch.com/quotes/aapl
Nevertheless, I think a $100 price cut will help, and may bring the company the most revenue over the next year or two.
However, I fear that the company may be overlooking the long term. Once users adopt the Mac, they rarely go back. It would be wiser to sacrifice a bit of profit for the next two or three years in order to double their user base. MS isn’t stuck with their current OS forever. It could come back, within three years, say, with a powerful, modern OS superior to Unix. The cost would be partial incompatibility with Windows, which would deter most Windows users from adopting it. They’d stick with Windows 7, etc. But many potential Apple customers would be tempted by it. Apple needs to watch its back and not assume its current edge over MS will last. There are lots of really top-flight people at MS, Ozzie can provide the leadership needed. I can see Apple riding for a fall. “Only the paranoid survive.”
Kill the Shorts and hang Duncan Riley. Same for Toni.
Oops–I meant to say, in the post above the one above, that the current lack of a low-budget MacBook “will bring the company the most profit over the next year or two.”
PS: This modern OS from MS would not be a continuation of the Windows line, but an alternative to it, for those customers who want an alternative. MS would continue to update Windows.