The WWDC curse on Apple stock repeats for 2007

We commented a couple weeks ago that despite Piper Jaffray data showing that generally holding Apple stock through announcements and Steve Jobs keynotes averages out to be a good investment, our own analysis shows that Apple stock held across the World Wide Developer's Conference typically loses money, averaging an 8% loss over 2005 and 2006. Well, 2007 is just reinforcing the trend. As of the opening today, Apple stock has lost 4.3% in value since last Friday, despite the fact that the iPhone launch later this month is likely to be a huge event.

Blackfriars will update our Apple forecast with a June Analyzing Apple report next week. But despite what we see as a lot of positive developments in Apple's future, we don't yet see earnings support for price forecasts of $180 or $200 unless you're betting on 2009 or 2010 earnings. And we forecast in April that we expect there to be some backlash to iPhone hysteria causing some bad days for Apple stock in July and August, with critiques ranging from "Apple didn't make enough iPhones to meet demand" to "Lack of third-party apps have doomed the platform." While we believe the first and doubt the second, at the end of the day, we believe mostly that the price of the stock will reflect to its future revenues and earnings. Traders may wish to play what we see as some pretty wild swings over the next few months, but for me, I'd just buy and the dips, and hold on to the stock.

Full disclosure: The author owns Apple stock at the time of writing.

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