[khmel]

Because, it was overpriced. Too many people believed that this gonna be the first 1 Trillion company in market cap.

Problems started before launch of IPhone 5 when it became obvious that IPhone maps are not good - market did not like this Apple vs. Google war. Then there was not very successful launch Ipad mini - it was way too expensive to become killer-product. Apple fired few top managers becaus of this drawback - also not a good sign. Finally, Microsoft 'cope' Apple format for retail stores and launched Windows 8 with more revolutional design then Apple products have.

I was personally disappointed with absence of NFC chip in IPhone 5. Apple mossed good opportunity to enter NFC payments market, while Android is already there.

Apple is loosing their edge.

[taligent]

Kind of funny that every single thing you said is wrong.

Apple isn't overpriced according to its P/E. The market couldn't have cared less about maps. The iPad Mini looks like being a bigger success than even Apple predicted according to Morgan Stanley. Apple only fired one manager related to iOS and it was for more than just maps. Finally sales of Surface/Win8 have not met internal expectations according to many recent reports.

[hiddenstage]

When Apple was at $700, it had the market cap of Google, Exxon Mobil, and Caterpillar combined.

In a hypothetical scenario, would you rather own all of Apple or all of Google, Exxon Mobil, and Caterpillar?

My point is, I'm not sure P/E means as much with such a ridiculously high market cap.

[khmel]

My perception is that this is zero sum game. For big companies like Apple their capitalization makret is driven mostly by institutional and megafunds money. Those guys are very inertial in their invetsment strategies, and their ammount of funds is stable. Decrease in Apple demand should mean that those guys realocated their funding to other IT companies, or moved money to another industry (this is less probable and takes more time).