Keep an eye on Apple’s Steve Jobs part 2
As The Chief was wont to say: “Sometimes, you just have to laugh yourself”.
Steve Jobs makes his pitch on Monday. He looks about as ill as you can be without having to take the day off work. Apple shares closed at US$181.61 on Monday.
Blogs, such our own, start nattering at 7 a.m. on Tuesday (see prior post “Keep an eye on Apple’s Steve Jobs” 7:36 a.m. June 10-08) about the Apple CEO’s health. We caution investors about the link between Mr. Jobs, his health, and Apple’s share price:
Watch the video of yesterday’s keynote address at the WWDC 2008 meeting. Apple (AAPL:NASDAQ) CEO Steve Jobs doesn’t look well. You have to say it. Gaunt. Tired. Unfortunately thin. Sickly. If we were friends I’d be concerned.
It may well be that his organic lifestyle is starting to bite (see prior post “John Mackey is out of his organic mind” July 11-07), and that could have bizarre repercussions indeed. Could it be that the ongoing SEC interest in his options pricing practices remains at the forefront of his daily calendar (see prior post “Steve Jobs finally gets his subpoena” September 21-07)?
Can any of this be good for the stock?
By 2:36 p.m. EDT Tuesday afternoon, the Wall Street Journal picks up on some blogs that are wringing their hands about Mr. Jobs “gaunt” appearance.
Hey! I recognize that word.
By 4:28 p.m. PDT Tuesday, the L.A. Times jumps onboard. The Times’ story refers to the WSJ’s story referring to the same health concerns raised by bloggers. How’s that for independent research? Apple PR staff advise that Mr. Jobs is merely recovering from “a common bug”; investors wake up and remember that Apple may well have just one employee that really matters. Apple shares close at US$185.64 on Tuesday.
Apple shares close at US$180.81 on Wednesday, a snick below the share price on the day of Mr. Jobs’ original appearance.
By the close of business on Thursday, one hedge fund manager advises her colleagues on CNBC’s Fast Money that she is short Apple as a result of the Jobs health rumours, and that she’s also bought some puts. That’s a serious bet against Apple’s stock. Apple shares close at US$173.26.
On Friday, everyone’s favourite DTM crew here at home came across the story in the form of a June 13th Henry Bloget blog, and link to the L.A. Times story that linked to the WSJ story that linked to the original bloggers from Monday evening and Tuesday morning.
Apple shares are now around US$170.27, despite the NASDAQ trading higher for the past two days.
Let no one ever say that blogging isn’t here to stay. As for the DTM living off the avails, we’ll eventually figure out how to start charging them for our services. In the meantime, we’re just one large army of unpaid freelancers.
MRM
A sad day to see this kind of blog taking credit for a sell off in a great company, F**king sad.
Adam
I don’t think we are taking credit for the stock being down, but for being one of the first to point out a concern that has now gripped Apple watchers. Some of our team members own it, so why would we want to jawbone it down unnecesarily? Apple is a great company, but do they have a deep management team? That’s partially what’s driving the stock down in my mind; there’s, suddenly, a recognition, that it may all be about Mr. Jobs.
The observation to take away is 1) the internet has a viral nature when it comes to stocks, both up and down, and 2) the Dead Tree Media’s long term survivability needs to be based upon more than linking to the work of unpaid bloggers, several days into a story.
MRM