It may seem hard to believe, but when I was in college, I was interested in being a securities analyst at an investment bank. I naively thought they did something similar to what I do now, which is know an industry deeply, study a lot of charts, and write earnest, thoughtful ideas about what they saw. Instead, experience has taught me that analysts are either overpaid shills for the investment bank or shameless attention-whores.
As an example of that second type, let us turn our attention to the following news item, published just days ago:
For some reason, these geniuses thought the Big Round Number of 1,000 wasn't sufficient, so they upped the ante to a series of repeating digits (I suppose $2222 struck even them as questionable). This morning, I read that they have "tweaked" their model and given the price target a "haircut" (yes, these are the actual wordss they used) and the figure is now…………$888 (which should surely appeal to Chinese investors).
Of course, while these guys are cashing in huge paychecks, I'm here in my corner of the blogosphere castigating you good people to click a freakin' advertisement once in a blue moon and writing stuff like How Apple Became Japan last year which stated, in no uncertain terms:
I imagine AAPL will be in the low 400s next year and will meander around relatively trendlessly for years to come. Its multi-thousand percent gain will be a part of financial history, just like similar gains enjoyed many years ago by RIMM, CSCO, and YHOO.
I think the $701.86 high we saw last year won't just be the highest price Apple reaches in the near term; it'll be the highet price it reaches in our lifetimes. This once is past its peak, folks. Steve is gone. Look for the next shiny object.
Late-breaking Bonus image, posted within days of Apple's all-time high:
