Apple's Bear Market: Now Needs $100 Billion from Investors to Get Back to Highs

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) is now firmly in bear market territory. The stock is down over 3.5% at $559.50 or so after the election and after overseas comments about Europe weakening. With a 52-week trading range of $363.32 to $705.07, official bear market territory by all definitions would be anywhere more than a 20% drop from the high.

Anything south of $564.05 is technically bear market territory for Apple. A price of $559.50 is south of that, so Apple is in bear market territory. There are no assurances that Apple will stay in this bear market territory, but you are seeing a very rare occurrence if you have followed Apple's monumental rise.

The consensus price target is now $767.40, which is actually now drifting lower. Back on October 22 when Stern Agee recalibrated its $840 price target Apple's consensus price target according to Thomson Reuters was closer to $778. That is not indicative of severe analyst downgrades, but it is a tempering of upside expectations in what is still the highest valued company in America.

As a reminder, when companies get to a super-cap level ($100 billion is our own cut-off for a super-cap value) every 1% gain at least in theory requires $1 billion of money flowing into it. With a $525 billion market cap, that means that investors are going to have to pony up another $105 billion or so solely to buy up Apple shares just to get Apple's share price back to its $705 high. Our title said $100 billion, but it is actually more.

Apple is still a great company. The problem is that this is where the law of big numbers comes into play. Apple is a situation where the law of big numbers is now the law of huge numbers.

JON C. OGG

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