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Only last September (9/21/12) Apple, Inc. (AAPL), the great Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne founded technology company famously innovative as the creator of the Macintosh Computer, distinctive laptops, the iphone, ipad, etc., was selling for $705.07. Earlier this month (3/4/13), Apple was down to $419.00, and as of 3/20/13, it was still only back to $452.08 a share, 35.88% lower than just 6 months ago.
Why the big drop? As Sir Isaac Newton is said to have discovered back in the 1660s, when an apple falls it must be evidence of some serious gravity (or perhaps something gravely wrong), right? So is there a little amiss with this fruit company? Might there be a worm at its core? And since it comprises so much of the NASDAQ Index, sometimes over 10%, is it perhaps a bad Apple that might spoil the stock market barrel?
Adjusted for splits, AAPL has gone from $2.75 a share at its initial public offering, in December, 1980, to over $705 in September of last year, a compound annual return of over 19%. Even more impressive was its rise from a then recent low of $6.56, on 4/17/2003, to its September, 2012, high, an annual rate of gain of over 64%, and that does not take into account its dividends. Apple has thus been a growth company par excellence. Even after its decline from over $705, Apple's market capitalization exceeds that of many other large publicly traded companies combined.
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