Apple has done nothing to warrant such a loss. It's just Wall Street being idiots, which is nothing new when it comes to Apple. It's a great time to buy Apple stock.
no? (TLDR following)
here's some things that have happened in the last few months that might negatively impact stock expectations and put hesitation in wall street investment. Remember, wall street is based on speculation, so the stock price represents what investors Believe is on the horizon for Apple.
off top of my head some stories about apple that have popped up in the last month.
1: possible split of Samsung and apple for production of LCD technologies. if this does go through, possibility Apple will be left 15 million units a year production capability Short. Finding new suppliers to make up such a tremendous supply will not be easy, nor cheap.
2: USPTO invalidation of "bounce back" patent. This patent was a major cornerstone of all the Apple v _____ lawsuits. this patent was a major proponent of the 1 billion settlement in court in the US, in which 21 devices were believed by the jury to infringe. Without this patent, that is a tremendous reduction of possible damages and infringing devices and will require a serious look back at what damages were awarded.
3: inevitable appeal by Samsung in the USA due to inconsistencies during the Apple v Samsung case. From Jury issues that have been released (conflict of interest and potential lying jury foreman, to a judge who "overstepped her authority" by granting a preliminary injunction). That 1 billion settlement is anything but a sure thing.
4: Enough attention at new product launch that their most recent iPad mini is "overpriced". it has gained enough negative attention that both Tim Cook and Paul Schiller have had to publicly defend their price point.
5: I haven't finished pouring over the financials from 4th Q. but initial investigation shows that Apple is showing a general decrease in profit margins across the board from before.
6: see 5 for this caveat, but initial impressions did not show any real growth to Apple sales. I do understand that Sept numbers do not include new ipad sales, nor i believe iphone5 sales. But as of September, Apple did not increase sales of any product over previous Quarter. In fact, if you check the fancy chart, sales were pretty flat on almost all product groups except PC sales, which is not the majority of their business.
7: Apple has lost its #1 place in the mobile smartphone market. they might be the single largest single phone vendor in the past, but currently Android has more marketshare, and Samsung if it hasn't passed apple yet in total smartphone sales isn't doing to shabby. Apple hasn't made up much ground and is conceding more.
8: Apple is currently being seen as cutting ties with Google out of spiteful reasons and not smart business decisions. Pulling youtube and google maps off iOS6 has not entirely sat well (though it's subjective obviously), the Maps fiasco has not sat well with investors.
9: Foxconn strike, health and safety concerns, and possible quality control issues speak for itself.
These are just SOME of the negative stories that have come in the last few months regarding apple. there are more. some good positive ones are there, but it seems that right now Investor confidence has started to wane. In the summer after a tremendous unprecendented boom in Iphone4s sales. Sales numbers dropped of dramatically and did not remain high as predicted. Since Q1, when investors believed Apple should easily be worth $1000 / share, and the stock price was tracking towards $700 a share, we have suddenly seen the share price drop to todays (as of right now) $602 / share.
What this indicates is that Despite the previous confidence, Investors believe Apple, if it continues on the current trend will not be as valuable a company overall as they predicted.
