If anything Apple has proven to always reinvent itself and its product line beyond normal ways of committee-think.

People who view computers as furnishings tend to buy Macs and people who view computers as damn office equipment tend to buy PCs. Mac buyers wont buy Macs until they find matching furniture like tables or desks first. PC buyers just buy PCs and plop them on any damn thing like my old door desk!!

A lot of investors were speculating on Apple and when the markets started correcting I think people started dumping apple to take profits and because it might have been one of their more risky investment.

Apple isn't going anywhere, there computers are amazing and continue to grab market share (even thought they are now incredibly overpriced).

Now is the time to start picking up shares of AAPL while they are on sale!

I don't think that is even remotely why.

1) iTunes still has room to grow as a music retailer, even if it is in the top 5 music retailers.

2) Apple's Mac sales are only going to grow faster the more market share they gain: the more market share a product gains the faster it will begin to grow in the market as more and more people buy it.

3) The iPhone is an entirely new product that has a lot of room to grow as a new product and sales were damn good on opening weekend and will probably be damn good in the future.

4) The Apple TV is an entirely new product that has a lot of room to grow, it's not iPhone good in terms of sales as far as I know because Apple isn't even mentioning it but Apple is trying to define a direction for it.

5) Apple's retail business is still growing with almost 200 stores and a few more to open up during the quarter and future locations already marked for construction.

Apple is doing so well and is so efficient, yeah that's true, but they still have a lot of room to grow in those 5 examples.

I'm with "info" on this one, there was too much speculation and hype and the market is probably just correcting itself, although as noted, the faster Apple grows so will it's revenue.

Sebastian

"Many hedge funds screen their equities based on the same factors of good earnings momentum, valuation etc." such as AAPL has, according to an article by Mark Hines--http://seekingalpha.com/article/44862?source=d_email&u=80141.

Many hedge funds are forced by their failing mortgage backed securities to sell profitable equities. So this last week was more than profit taking, especially when it occurs with no explanation in the news or stock's fundamentals.

Agree with the post above about hedge funds selling.

The upside of Apple is still as good as it ever was. Most brokers are targeting over 165 and a few up to 100.

Buying opportunity.

Smiling about the comment regarding PC and Mac purchasers and furniture. I just ordered a new aluminum iMac and am getting a new desk for it. The old table matches the PowerBook well but just won't do for the iMac. :)

And yet there's not a single word here - in the post nor the comments - about the major scale-back in guidance that Apple gave in their July conference call. Interesting....

I second that about the lowered guidance ... If you listen to it again, Wall Street didn't want to buy it, but begrudgingly came to accept that Apple's back-to-school season always puts a dent in their numbers.

Look for a long-term play on this stock. I agree with the guy above who said in a year the stock will reflect how game-changing Apple has been, not just with the iPhone, but with everything else, and that's why I'm buying on the dips to lower my price/share.

Then, how come RIM isn't afflicted with Apple's curse of being a highly profitable stock? RIM has doubled in the past year. People keep saying RIM is overvalued and is going to run out of steam. Yet it just keeps going up. We'll see how long it takes Apple to get to the $200 a share mark. It probably never will. If one person says that the glossy screen on the iMac gave him a headache, look for the stock to drop 5% or typing with the iPhone keyboard made his fingers tired, knock off another 5% of stock price. Every little negative rumor will pummel Apple's stock whether the company's selling lots of computers or iPhones or iPods. Apple investors are just plain flaky. Their brains only respond to hype.