AAPL

I think investor expectations always lead to things like this.  No matter how great a company is doing they will not continue to grow at the same pace indefinitely.

Here's a statement from one of the many stories on their earnings:

"After announcing record profits but still disappointing many analysts with this week's lackluster holiday-quarter earnings report, Apple stock Thursday was dumped by so many people so quickly that the scramble tripped a Nasdaq circuit breaker"

The expectations are so high that even "record profits" aren't good enough.

Personally I avoid stocks like this like the plague because they all come crashing down eventually.

I like that chart and see same future for AAPL.  I see it settling around 425 and then will take the next "Big" product announcement to get the stock heading back to prior highs.   Al  of this by the way makes zero sense from a technical standpoint, but when has this market worked off of fundamentals in past few years (or longer)?

This market is so fickle it's mind boggling!  I bought Apple last week when it dropped just under 500.  I was somewhat concerned with them reporting earning the following week.  Earnings were outstanding...$13 per share!  And the stock tanks more than 10 percent because it didn't meat analysts expectations!  Same analysts that were telling you to buy qualcom and cisco before the dot bomb!  What else gets me is that the same day Netflix reports around 13 cent's per share and they shoot up about 40 percent!

As far as the comparison to Microsoft... that's a pretty chart but I'm not buying it.  Apple is one of the most innovative companies ever!  Microsoft...not even a close second.  I'm confident that Apple will do something big.  Be it in cloud computing, television, something that most people have not even heard of yet.  They have a ton of cash...they might just buy a company.  Anyone heard of 3D Systems? 

Anyway, the loss is only on paper and I am tempted to buy some calls.

of course they can't.  But they are still an outstanding company and their valuation is low.  They will remain a dominant player and should not have taken the beating they have this week.

Purely from a "gut feel" standpoint I think that something has to give and give in a big way.  I just don't feel the fundamentals warrant the market as a whole being up as high as it is.  Something related to the debt is where I think it will come from.

I don't know if it's a 2008 kind of pop (or worse), but I will say that in the weeks leading up to the 2008 crash everyone was happy as a fiddle with the market and everything was great.

Personally I'm only invested in Neutral to Bearish spreads at this point on the QQQ.  (I only trade ETF options)

How many revolutionary products do you think they can come up with? It seems like everything id predicated upon them continuing to disrupt new markets. Lately they've just been cannibalizing themselves instead of making new markets like the ipad/iphone did.