Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) once again gets shoved around by the ‘big boys’. This morning the Wall Street Journal reported that Apple cut orders on iPhone 5 parts by 50% due to low demand.
Wall Street Journal did cite their news ‘source’ and it deem seem very creditable “people familiar with the situation”. If that’s not great journalism I don’t know what is (insert sarcasm here).
“The move indicates that sales of the new iPhone haven’t been as strong as previously anticipated and demand may be waning.”
Yes WSJ you’re correct all signs do point to declining Apple sales. Oh wait not they don’t.
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Forbes published an article shortly after WSJ titled “Apple: Is WSJ’s iPhone Production Cut Story Old News?“. In the article UBS analyst Steve Milunovich notes this is old news from last month. Now why would the WSJ want to rehash old AAPL news so close to earnings release?
“Consequently, it appears this is old news—our analysts indicate no changes since,” he writes. “In December, we reduced our iPhone 5 estimates by 5 million a quarter due to the 30% production cut being reported out of Asia. At that time, our analysts estimated that March quarter iPhone 5 production would be 25-30 million and 4/4S 3-5 million. How much of the reduction was a result of inventory rebalancing vs. lower demand was unclear, but the cut was greater than seasonal so we took the conservative route.”
This “news” shouldn’t come as a surprise as the usual AAPL bashers WSJ, CNBC, Jim Cramer and Melissa seem to live for this lately.
In the few minutes it has taken me to write this article AAPL has started to recover with a high of $507.50. It appears that people are starting to realize this looks like another malicious manipulation attempt.
Disclosure: Share Holder
PS: Unlike the author of the WSJ aritcle Juro Osawa I disclose my position.
Update 1/14/13 (2:04pm EST): WSJ just published an article trying to justify their earlier article about the supposed decrease in part orders. I’m curious to see how this plays out looks like backpedaling to me.
