Good AAPL call here this morning...
Apple Is Sliding Toward the Bargain Bin
By Troy Wolverton
TheStreet.com Senior Writer
3/29/2006 7:12 AM EST
In recent months, Apple Computer's (AAPL:Nasdaq - commentary - research - Cramer's Take) stock has drooped ever lower. But have the shares fallen so low that the former can't-miss tech stock is ripe again for the picking?
Some investors believe so, and they've started putting their money where their mouths are, buying up the stock amid the selloff.
"I'm sitting here aghast seeing this [stock] go down on a daily basis," says one longtime bull on the shares, who asked to remain nameless. Apple's stock should rebound later this year amid improving financial results and a broader shift in investor sentiment, says the investor, whose fund is long Apple and has been buying shares in recent sessions.
But even investors who agree with predictions of a second-half rebound aren't sure that now's the right time to get in.
Apple is much more reasonably priced today than it was two months ago, says Steve Wallman, whose hedge fund has a small long stake in Apple. Wallman sold 90% of his fund's Apple shares when the stock hit $78, but he's not quite ready to load up again.
"I don't have a clue where it will bottom," he says. "The prospects are still good for the company. But when you buy something [whose stock is] in decline, it's like trying to grab a falling knife."
Apple investors have clearly felt the knife of late. Since the company's stock peaked at $86.40 in mid-January, it has fallen 32%. Now below $60, the shares are trading at their lowest level in nearly five months.
Investors point to a number of recent concerns that have weighed on Apple shares:
The white man seeks to conquer nature, to bend it to his will and to use it wastefully until it is all gone and then he simply moves on, leaving the waste behind him and looking for new places to take. Chiksika (Kispokotha Shawnee),March 19,1779
AI
