Investor calls for brief Apple stock decline
updated 04:00 pm EDT, Tue June 23, 2009
Brief Apple stock decline?
An option investor is anticipating a brief but substantial fall in Apple's stock price, according to Forbes. With the price having already slid in recent days, the investor predicts that within the next three weeks value should slip further, from approximately $134 to as low as $110. No direct reason is cited, but investors may be leery about Apple's prospects in light of reports claiming that CEO Steve Jobs underwent a liver transplant. Much of Apple's direction is said to come from Jobs, including product design.
RBC Capital analyst Mike Abramsky has issued an optimistic interpretation of Apple's prospects however, based on revisions to the iPhone line. The 1 million 3G S units sold over the weekend is impressive, Abramsky comments, but the new phone is said to be less important than the 3G, now cheaper at $99. It could increase momentum by 30 to 40 percent in many Asian and European countries, where phone subsidies are already higher, and many people opt for prepaid devices regardless.
Some 20 million iPhones may be sold in FY09, of which 64.5 percent are forecast to be 3Gs. The 3G S is not expected to control iPhone sales until FY10, when total iPhone sales of 30 million are predicted, approximately 60 percent of which could be taken up by the 3G S. The memo does not make mention of the 3G S' likely successor.
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Joined: Oct 1999
Do they really even know?
Here's a news flash - Steve Jobs will not be able to continue on as CEO until the end of time - yep, but my sources are pretty good.
The whole thing has been visited a number of times - most critically when SJ left for his recent medical leave. And six months later what do we have? Turns out Apple didn't go under and the leadership - honed by SJ over the last ten years - have demonstrated they are more than capable of running the company as the Apple everyone has come to expect.
But no, once again SJ's medical condition is back in the limelight and once again all the naysayers and doom-seers are predicting the end of Apple. Maybe the best thing that came from Apple's ouster of SJ back in the 90's was that on his return, he knew what he had to do to shape the company to continue to be the Apple we know once he's gone. I think what we can expect over the next 1 to 3 years is jobs giving up more and more of his responsibility including his CEO status to just consulting and then slowly fade away. Apple has been, is, and always will be SJ's legacy (regardless of what anyone might think of it).
I find it ridiculous that despite Apples product line such as the current unibody MacBooks at reduced pricing, the iPod and iTunes business (which could be a company all on its own), and of course the amazing iPhone, that analysts and investors can reduce everything to SJ's in 2009 - no doubt had SJ left 4 or 5 years ago this might have been a different story, but in building a lasting legacy, SJ could retire today confident that Apple will remain "Apple".
It's time folks - lets stop reducing Apple to Jobs Co.