Apple Falls Below $400

[DesMoinesDem]

Apple Inc. (AAPL) dropped below $400 for the first time since December 2011 after one of its audio-chip suppliers, Cirrus Logic Inc. (CRUS), reported an inventory glut that suggests iPhone sales may fall short of analysts’ expectations.

Apple’s shares declined 5.3 percent to $403.62 at 1:58 p.m. in New York, and earlier touched $398.11, the lowest intraday price since December 22, 2011. Cirrus, which makes sound components for the iPhone and iPad, is an indicator of demand for Apple’s top-selling products, according to Peter Misek, an analyst at Jefferies & Co.

“We blame Apple for losing its mobility mojo,” Vernon Essi, Jr., an analyst at Needham & Co., wrote in a research report today. “This was simply an inventory overbuild for the iPhone 5 relative to Apple’s forecast.”

Apple’s stock has fallen more than 40 percent from a record in September amid concerns about slowing profit and sales, narrowing margins and intensifying mobile competition. While the iPhone is the most popular handset, Samsung Electronics Co. has become the leading overall provider of smartphones by introducing a variety of devices with different designs and prices.

“Apple is reducing expectations,” Misek said in an interview.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-04-17/apple-falls-on-sales-forecast-miss-by-audio-chip-supplier-cirrus



The resident apple fanboy told me in October that AAPL was going to $1000 within one year. It's not looking good for that prediction.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

1. 3 lessons for Apple's shareholders

3 lessons for Apple's shareholders

By Allan Sloan, senior editor-at-large February 6, 2013: 5:00 AM ET

The recent swings in Apple stock prove that a few simple rules of investing always hold true.
FORTUNE -- For most people, Apple mania means buying the company's products and playing with them. But for us financial voyeur types, the fun comes from watching the lunatic lurching of Apple's stock price.

You gotta love it. From the start of last year through its all-time closing high on Sept. 19, Wilshire Associate says, Apple (AAPL) rose 73.5%, becoming the most valuable stock in the history of capitalism and accounting for an amazing 12% of the return the entire 3,684-stock Wilshire 5000 Index posted during that period. Then came the fall, and by this Jan. 24, Apple had dropped 36% from its high. During that decline, calculates S&P's numbers whiz Howard Silverblatt, Apple's stock fell by more than the entire market value of Microsoft (MSFT), once the world's most highly valued company. Great stuff for us voyeur types.

What can we retail investors learn from observing these gyrations? That no matter how hot a company seems to be and how limitless its future, some ancient verities of investing still apply.

Let me offer you three of them.