Hmmmmm?... Is the Plunge Protection Team slipping on the job?
Apple 2.0
Mac news from outside the reality distortion fieldSnapshot of an Apple flash crashPosted by Philip Elmer-DeWitt
February 10, 2011 2:50 PM
What triggered the sell-off that knocked $10 billion off the company's market cap?
Something happened to Apple's (AAPL) share price Thursday afternoon that has investors still scratching their heads.
The stock, which had been sailing along near its all-time high of $360 a share, started to drop at about 1 p.m. Then, at 1:39, it collapsed, falling from $355 to $349 in the space of four minutes.
In all, $10 billion got shaved off Apple's market capitalization before the stock began to recover.
Except for the surprisingly short iPhone lines at Verizon stores Thursday, there didn't seem to be any news behind the sell off.
"The selling is not normal just for negative news," wrote Bullish Cross' Andy Zaky in an e-mail. "There was a huge spike where dollars were being skipped in the selling. I saw Apple tick from $351.70 to $349.00 within seconds. There's something else. The selling was not normal. That's for sure. It wasn't orderly. Take a look for yourself."
The chart, Zaky suggests, bears a strikingly resemblance to the flash crash of May 6, 2010. But that event shook the entire market. This one belonged to Apple.
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/02/10/snapshot-of-an-apple-flash-crash/
