Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ medical leave makes market cautious

“Apple Inc. shares remained in the red in afternoon trading Thursday on concerns surrounding the announcement that Chief Executive Steve Jobs is going on leave until the end of June to deal with a medical condition that has become more troublesome than previously believed,” Rex Crum reports for MarketWatch.

“Apple’s shares edged back from their low point, but still remained down [by $2.22 at $83.11], during a negative session for stocks overall,” Crum reports.

“The statement came less than two weeks after he said that he wouldn’t discuss his health anymore. On Jan. 5, he revealed he was undergoing treatment for a ‘hormone imbalance’ that was responsible for the dramatic weight loss he experienced over the past year,” Crum reports.

“Bill Fearnley of FTN Midwest Securities called Jobs’ medical leave a ‘surprise given last week’s announcement’ and cut his rating on Apple’s stock to neutral from buy.
Fearnley said that he believes the company’s main product lines — its Macintosh computers, iPods and the iPhone — are likely to continue to do well, but that the absence of Jobs could have a negative effect on how Apple rolls out new product advancements,” Crum reports. “‘This creates more questions for product and technology development processes at Apple in the near term,’ he wrote in a research note. ‘The potential for delays in some products and technology releases is more likely given this announcement.'”

MacDailyNews Take: Anybody can be an “analyst.” Seriously. They don’t even need a degree in anything. There’s no accreditation. Nothing. The idiot would’ve made the same amount of sense writing, “This creates more questions for Chicken Cacciatore chefs and hardwood floor buffers three weeks from last Tuesday. The potential for delays in popcorn and lug nuts is more or less likely since I’m a blooming idiot who can’t tell his ass from his elbow.” “Bill Fearnley of FTN Midwest Securities.” Puleeeze. We’ve forgotten more about Apple than most of these idiots ever knew.

Crum coninues, “Cook, seen as the person behind overall operations, has been considered for some time to be a possible replacement for Jobs in the future…”

MacDailyNews Take: Oh, forget it. It’s the same old article we’ve been reading for the last day.

Here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “JES42” for the heads up.]

12 Comments

  1. “The statement came less than two weeks after he said that he wouldn’t discuss his health anymore.”

    That is manipulative statement; Jobs did not state he will never ever discuss his health again; he said that was is for the moment.

  2. There are certainly a lot of details like that to take into consideration. That’s a great point to bring up. I offer the thoughts above as general inspiration but clearly there are questions like the one you bring up where the most important thing will be working in honest good faith. I don’t know if best practices have emerged around things like that, but I am sure that your job is clearly identified as a fair game if you are commenting as an individual.financial modeling software

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