Stock ManAAPLation? [Updated]

On Dec. 30, with just a couple of hours left in the penultimate trading session of the year, Apple’s (AAPL) shares hit $87.99 and seemed to be well on their way back to $90. But before they could break $88, claims that Steve Jobs’s declining health is the real reason the Apple CEO won’t deliver the keynote at Macworld 2009 cut the legs out from under them. The rumor was quickly dismissed, but not before AAPL plunged to $85.04.

As I noted that day, the timing of the rumor seemed a bit suspicious. With little in the way of news during the holiday week, Jobs’s decision to bail on the Macworld keynote issue still fresh in our minds and his health an obvious shareholder concern, it seemed a bit like an AAPL manipulator’s perfect storm.

Apparently, there may be a bit more to that armchair theory than I thought. Over at Traderhood, writers with far more stock analysis acumen than I, suggest that Apple shares were poised for a huge breakout in price the afternoon of Dec. 30, bolstered by a general upward trend in the market and their own ascending triangle (click on chart below) when they very suspiciously had the wind knocked out of them. “Amazingly at the very point where AAPL’s spike at the tip of the ascending triangle should happen, rumor was introduced and killed the setup completely,” Traderhood blogger Conschmillo explains. “I mean you can have things to happen unexpectedly. It happens all the time, it is a stock market, but to have them placed this [precisely] when everything else is taking off, AAPL included, makes me believe, there is more than meets the eye to why AAPL price is down. If this rumor was not introduced, AAPL would be somewhere around $93.”

So, a favorable technical set-up was thwarted at the moment the odds favored the opposite happening. Coincidence?

UPDATE: Apparently, it was a coincidence. Brian Lam, Editorial Director of Gizmodo, which published the rumor, tells me the site was tipped off well before Dec. 30.

[Image credit: Tin foil hat courtesy Patrick Daley]

(Thanks Barry )

Uma Lakshman

Yes, I noted the very same on Dec31st. I disagree on the stock price though, it should have been 108.
Ken Maness

Maybe I’m naive, but I’ve sold shares of Apple stock twice in the last two months based on reports of Steve Jobs illness. The latest was supposedly from a source at Gizmodo that had been 100% correct in the past, before that from an ‘anonymous user’ that Steve had supposedly been rushed to the hospital with chest pains. Whether I’m naive or not for selling, this type of garbage has cost me a great deal of money.
sheldon danto

I’ve seen this manipulation trend and have in messages asked the SEC to investigate. From a gut feel perspective there appears to be some link between reporting on RIMM and the negative statements from select analysts. APPLE is unbelievably well positioned, in product, in market / customer perceptions, and financially with it’s cash and margin levels plus its recuring revenue line as to how it books a IPHONE sale. Ultimately, either the market manipulators will get nervous or they will get caught and APPLE will again climb back to the value levels it has earned. SEC take a look, other investors – be patient – stock will be back where it belongs soon.
Jeff Stevens

Only your stocks, John, are manipulated. Stocks like SIRI, that you trashed on the 30th, and Peter on the 28th aren’t!
http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com John Paczkowski

I don’t really hold any stocks, Jeff.

http://allthingsd.com/about/john-paczkowski/
http://poweredbydmt.com Mark Light

Looks’d like Sun-related exposure, from here. :)
http://poweredbydmt.com Mark Light

Sour grapes, in other words. Jealousy, basically. :) Grrr…(me thumbs the Thesaurus)… :)
Sunny Guy

You sold AAPL based on an anonymous rumor??

I think your allowance is too high — your parents
need to reduce it.

Unfortunately, you’re probably a typical “investor”
nowadays. No wonder the market is bonkers.

Sunny Guy
Jeff Stevens

My word I had in mind Mark is Hypocrisy. John also wrote an op-ed bashing Dell favoring Apple in the “Green with envy” story, he took from a WSJ writer. Even though Apple is rated lower in Green than Dell, as John indicated. The smart op-ed would to have agreed with Dell in bashing Apple for making a Green TV commercial. So I am shocked he isn’t an Apple stockholder.
http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com John Paczkowski

Jeff …

The “op-ed” to which you refer was based on a Dell exec. blog post. It was not “taken” from another WSJ writer. In fact, the WSJ article ran about a week after my post. If you re-read my Dell post, you’ll see that there’s quite a bit more to it then DELL=BAD, APPLE=GOOD.
Robert Falkner

35,861 puts @$90…16,687 @$95…46,211 @$100 and that’s all times a hundred shares of course. Somebody’s gonna lose a bundle if they can’t shut Apple down by the 16th. Well worth planning in advance for.

Stock ManAAPLation? [Updated]

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