AllThingsD » sell-off

Eight Percent Decline in Apple Shares Best Ignored

John Paczkowski — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 12:30:16 +0000

On Nov. 16, Apple shares hit a 52-week high of $208.70. Two weeks later and they’re trading under $190. That’s an unsettling eight percent decline. But according to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, it’s no cause for concern.

What we’re seeing is just a seasonal sell-off that’s occurring a bit earlier than usual. Apple’s stock typically outperforms during the last four months of the year and underperforms in the first four months of the year that follows (see tables below; click to enlarge). With Apple (AAPL) a no-show at Macworld this year, that timeline has been accelerated a bit.

“We believe investors are leveraging the late ’09 outperformance and getting ahead of the early ’10 sell-off this year, which may be causing the recent share weakness,” Munster explains. “We note that in the past shares have gone up in anticipation of the Macworld conference; however, this is the first year Apple will not participate in the tradeshow….We remain confident that the Dec. quarter will provide enough upside, driven by Mac, to give investors confidence that the fundamentals are intact.”

That seems a reasonable assessment, particularly given Apple’s reportedly quite strong Black Friday sales. As Thomas Weisel Partners noted a few weeks back, the company’s stores experienced “robust sales driven by sustained brand strength, rising demand for app-ready iPod touches and a positive-mix in Macs.” Presumably, that will continue through the holidays.

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Apple Investors Are Wusses

Collapse Reversal: Easy Go, Easy Come

Eric Savitz — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:11:23 +0000

Yesterday afternoon, I posted a list of how some of the most prominent stocks fared in Wednesday’s mammoth selloff.

Given today’s equally dramatic rally, I thought the list deserved an update–I’ve added just one stock, Microsoft (MSFT), which I inexplicably forgot to include yesterday. All of the stocks on the list were down yesterday, except Dell (DELL), which had been hit on Tuesday, and Seagate (STX), which was unchanged. Today, all the stocks on the list were higher, except for VMware (VMW) and its parent, EMC (EMC). The one stock that best captured what’s been going on: Western Digital (WDC), down $1.89 yesterday, up $1.89 today.

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Apple: Spring Rally Now Almost Completely Erased

Eric Savitz — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 19:20:23 +0000

The Apple (AAPL) spring rally has been almost entirely deleted.

Pressured by a combination of concerns over the health of CEO Steve Jobs, disappointment with the latest round of iPod product announcements and the company’s caution on near-term gross margins, combined with worries about weakening PC demand in the face of a struggling economy, the shares have been ratcheting steadily downward since mid-May. The company suffered a similar sharp selloff early in the year before staging an impressive spring rally.

For Apple investors, 2008 has been a story with three distinct parts.

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Google Proves Mortal; Opportunity Knocking?

Eric Savitz — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 18:08:10 +0000

So, there are a couple of ways to think about Google’s (GOOG) big post-second-quarter sell-off this morning. For starters, as I noted last night, there seems to be increasing evidence that online advertising is actually feeling the effects of the slower economy. One quarter earlier, the company had denied that it was feeling the effects of the macro slowdown, but that no longer seems to be the case, and the Street is adjusting its perceptions of the company accordingly. On the other hand, the legion of analysts with Buy ratings on the stock almost universally believe investors are being given an opportunity here to buy the stock on the cheap.

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