The Survey That Squashed AAPL

Philip Elmer-DeWitt takes a close look at the IT purchasing-plan survey that sparked the dramatic sell-off on Apple’s stock yesterday:

So there are indeed signs of a cooling trend for Apple, but it’s not at all clear that they justify an 18% drop in its share price. Dell, by comparison, dropped 5.9% on Monday and its ChangeWave chart is disaster.

In short, it seems like Apple’s stock took a disproportionate hit for a downward turn in IT purchasing industry-wide. Plus, quite obviously, it was the single worst day in 20 years for a bad forecast about any publicly-traded company to be released.

★ Tuesday, 30 September 2008