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CNBC's anti-Apple crusader

Posted by Philip Elmer-DeWitt
February 20, 2011 8:05 AM

Erin Burnett has hit on what she must think is a winning formula


Source: CNBC

I don't spend a lot of time watching CNBC, but I've seen enough of Erin Burnett's coverage of Apple (AAPL) to see the pattern.

Last fall, it was an interview with Tiger Management's Julian Robertson in which she tried -- and failed -- to get him to call Apple's rising stock price a "bubble." (See How not to interview a hedge fund legend.)

In January, three weeks before the stock hit $364.90, an all-time record intraday high, she landed on the New York Post's Page Six for this on-air remark: "It was the It Stock of '07, and it is apparently the s - - t stock of 2008." (See CNBC's hottie has a potty mouth.)

Then on Friday, as Apple's shares were performing more to her liking, down $7.74 (2.16%) for the day, she found someone who would do on air what Julian Robertson wouldn't: Agree with her characterization of Apple as "the short of the century."


Her guest on Friday's episode of Street Signs was Clem Chambers, the British novelist and former purveyor of massively multiplayer games (Dracula, Frankenstein and Jack The Ripper), whose thesis -- "One hiccup and the stock is back down to $200 a share" -- was skewered Sunday by Bullish Cross' Andy Zaky.

Zaky pointed out on Seeking Alpha what every serious investor knows: That compared with Intel (INTC), IBM (IBM), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and Google (GOOG), Apple is still undervalued.

But Burnett has learned that taking pot shots at the world's most valuable technology company is a great way to draw attention to herself, and as long as that's working for her -- and her network -- she'll probably keep doing it.

Below: Friday's "Shorting Apple" segment. (Also available here.)

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/02/20/cnbcs-anti-apple-crusader/?source=yahoo_quote