IANAL (but I will be in the near future) but I think that Steve's disclosure about his health last month (I think it was last month) will cover their bases. He HAS been working for the last little while. Now take that into account along with the disclosure BY STEVE that his health problems are more complicated than he and his doctors thought. I've been going through some odd medical problems for the last few years - I've seen specialists in all sorts of different fields to try and figure out what's wrong and no one was able to tell me until I saw a new GP a few months ago. It just happened to be something that he knew about.
Who here hasn't been sick and then got highly optimistic as soon as they started getting better? Steve's letter last month sounds like someone who just found out what was wrong and was feeling optimistic about getting better.
Medicine is complicated, and Steve's pancreatic cancer just make things even more complicated in diagnosing and treating what's wrong. He thought he was getting better according to his own public disclosure. There were no intentionally misleading statements.
It's long past time for stock market reform. Reduce the capital gains tax, and start taxing stock trades. The whole purpose of a stock market is to encourage long-term corporate investment (and sometimes short-term), not gambling on the day-to-day health of its management. This should have been obvious 10-20 years ago when global communication and technology started allowing trading faster than people's brains work.
Any attempt to sue would just be a way for someone to throw more money away after their panic driven sale of apple shares that they bought NOT because the company is solid, but because of a person in that company! What a ridiculous premise to buy shares!
that's not why they are suing.
the suits are coming from folks that want blame the drop in Apple's stock, not on the general economy, but on Steve's health. and a bogus claim that Apple owed it to them to fess up all along that he was 'dying' blah blah.
but here's the thing. there are no laws demanding that a company violate any executives privacy. no laws that demand that a CEOs business be made public. So long as Steve can do his job, which is to guide Apple's product line development etc, his business is his business. That's according to the law.
Steve had cancer in 2005-6, yes. look at what has happened with Apple during that time and during his recovery. No stall outs, no drop off in releases.
What we get is a guy who had half his GI tract removed (which begs the question why is anyone shocked he's lost weight and having weight issues when you can google the procedure and side effects in about 5 seconds) still getting up there and doing all the things he did before. Perhaps when he should have taken it a bit easy.
He's dealt with the stress of the rumors without tantrums. but instead by continuing to do his job and push Apple to release the best products they can and to offer the best service they can in their stores. All that changed was perhaps understanding that he could no longer be the only public face of the company at things like Macworld and WWDC or the rumors would never die. So he started bringing up the other brains with him to show folks, in vain it seems, that he's not the company. just a part of it. That he's set things up so that this time when he leaves, it won't be another fiasco. So leave the past in the past and stop freaking out.
Hopefully someone will step and tell all these folks that they have nothing to sue for because Apple has done nothing wrong. I personally don't want the company having to waste time and resources on a bunch of BS lawsuits (setting aside that I do think that they could go after the so called reporters that have slandered/libeled them and Steve). I want them to concentrate on getting me a better iphone and a better imac, like yesterday.
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It's hard to prove that this was a long term issue that was known about all along,
on the contrary, it is. the guy had a Whipple done. that takes out half your digestive system. of course there are going to be long term effects.
what is hard to prove is if they knew from day one that the effects would end up this bad even without the added stress of all the rumors etc. In other words, if the current sitch is partly to blame for things being as bad as it is.
and regardless is the issue of whether, like these suits claim, Apple owed anyone open disclosure from day one. Right now, the lack of laws demanding such honestly says no. which is why these suits are going to be tricky. The shareholders will claim that the lack of information hurt the stock price and caused them damage. And Company will counter that it was shareholders who put too much onto the rumors etc and sold out and caused the damage themselves so Apple ain't to blame for that. and to a degree, Apple is right. Too much focus by the media and the shareholders and not enough on the products of the company has led to a lot of this 'downfall'
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Originally Posted by ktappe
You're serious? This is Apple and Steve Jobs we're talking about. They get off on withholding information. They have an extensive history of suing people who leak information. They're secretive and have been for decades.
withholding information about upcoming releases to avoid a competitor beating them to the punch is one thing. And understandable. Do you really think that Microsoft doesn't keep a few things hidden. you bet your bottom they do. maybe not as tightly as Apple but with that huge chunk of the market, they don't need to.
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You have zero info on whether they withheld information but we have a pattern of behavior to indicate that they probably did. It's much more logical to go with the latter than your desire to believe they fully disclosed everything.
withholding info about upcoming products is one thing. violating a company members privacy is another.
No one is suing because of product secrecy. No one is claiming that R&D secrecy has dropped the stock prices. they are claiming that Apple not giving it up that their great Rock God Steve Jobs is about to kick it and shuffle off any day now, is what killed their precious stock prices. That Apple owed them an explanation from day one. Blah blah.
and right now, the laws disagree. No where is there anything that says that a company 'owes' anyone private info about any major player so long as the person isn't breaking any laws and can do his job. And even then they might not (well the former probably, the latter is the question)
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Originally Posted by ktappe
You actually proved their point, not yours. IF your wife were company whose profits were based on consistently providing warm/hot coffee AND your wife went out of her way to assure investors that there would be absolutely no interruption in the supply of said coffee AND then she supplied cold coffee with no advance warning or explanation, THEN actually yes, you would be able to sue her and the SEC would investigate. Perhaps you need to learn a bit more about what scrutiny a company agrees to when they go public.
your analogy is garbage.
one because it is the company that is under scutiny, not the people in it. that's the point to this whole game. to try to change the laws to say that the company owes it to the shareholders to banish a CEO or any officers privacy and report on his/her private affairs.
two, because Apple's products are not proven to be in jeopardy. IF it was proven that Jobs designs everything down to the last detail and tells no one anything about how to make the product, run it, etc. then you might have cause to make a claim. but we all know that to not be true with Apple. We've seen the people, heard from the people, Jobs has introduced the other people. And I can bet you that Apple's next ten years of plans are already written down, subject to changes in technology of course, with a core mission plan that would likely take them the next 50 years. even without Steve
to use your wife in a better analogy to what the shareholders are claiming:
your family is a company. the sole source of income is a coffee cake that your wife bakes and sells. She uses a family recipe passed down from generation to generation to the women of the family. It has never been written down. Your wife dies in a tragic baking accident, and takes the recipe to her grave. rendering you unable to continue the business at the same level of success because you don't know the recipe.
as I said, so very much not the case with Apple. And hopefully the courts will agree and shut all this up once and for all and Apple can get back to making their products without distraction. and Steve can have a nice recovery at home, with a few ichat sessions to be 'present' at board meetings and such, so when he returns it will feel like he never left. And without all the stress perhaps he'll be back sooner than expected. Which would shut up the naysayers even more
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Originally Posted by Donathius
Who here hasn't been sick and then got highly optimistic as soon as they started getting better? Steve's letter last month sounds like someone who just found out what was wrong and was feeling optimistic about getting better.
this isn't really anything new. It's just a followup to the last letter. Steve said it was a treatable problem but wouldn't be overnight. why is anyone shocked that he's taking a leave. all of this is because he didn't say that last time. but maybe last time he didn't have the plans finalized. imagine if he had said he was taking a leave but didn't spell out that he was still going to be involved and who was playing his eyes and ears during his absence. just as much if not more chaos.
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Medicine is complicated, and Steve's pancreatic cancer
is over and done. He HAD cancer. a rare but totally treatable form of cancer. it was removed. end of story. no longer an issue and folks need to drop it.
this is all about the surgery that was done. Look it up. It's called a Whipple. And it removes a huge chunk of your intestines among other things (including a chunk of your hormone producing pancreas). None of this should really be a shock. It was always among the side effects, if anyone had bothered to educate themselves.
the stress of dealing with all this garbage likely hasn't helped. but at no one after the surgery has Steve been dying etc.
and consider that most of this crap about him dying blah blah started at the same time that the economy started tanking over all. gas prices were soaring, unemployment was rising. it reeks of folks looking for something else to blame so they figure it must be Steve Jobs is dying and that's why their Apple stock is slipping.
"a matter which has undoubtedly played a major role in driving the company's share price to less than half of its 52-week high of $192.24."
I think if one looks carefully at the stock market it is possible to find a lot of stocks that have tumbled in this same period. The reality is that AAPL was widely held by institutions and hedge funds that had to produce lots of cash over the last three months of 2008 due to the credit crisis. I am not defending Apple per se, but to say that this health issue played a major role in the past years decline is to be either completely ignorant of the financial markets in general or to have an agenda based on the outcome of these lawsuits.
Exactly. The economy crashing is what brought all stocks down, not Steve Jobs' health issues. Apple will continue to do just fine without Steve. Steve replaced the entire management team when he returned in 1997. So the team that almost bankrupt the company has been long gone for over 10 years. You also can't claim you were unaware of his health issue since his cancer was made public 5 years ago. So as the one attorney commented, it would be very hard to prove you were misled when his health was already a known issue (and that the economy is what caused the major crash in the stock, not his health).
Apple has 888.94 million shares of stock out there. each share has lost MORE than $113.10 in value. My Calculator may be wrong, but that seems to be $100,539,114,000.00 in lost value over the last 52 weeks. Thats lost value for a company that is financially healthy... Love it or Hate it the constant speculation over Jobs Health has been a significant ingredient in this down turn.
It's sick that it is an Issue... but as long as the Media percieves it to be an Issue, to those with a financial stake, IT IS an Issue that costs them Money... BIG MONEY! you lose your house by an acto of god, and your insurance company sais no way... you just going to sit there and say oh me oh my??? I doubt it.
What's up with a suit being drawn up because they kept their health issues to themselves? I think HIPAA allows for this. Just because the man does a good job at the helm of a major corporation, does this mean he doesn't have rights under HIPAA, too? What a waste of time. Apple will move on. Jobs certainly is a great innovative leader, but his health is his business, no one else's.
As one human to another, Steve, I wish you the best in your recovery.
You're serious? This is Apple and Steve Jobs we're talking about. They get off on withholding information. They have an extensive history of suing people who leak information. They're secretive and have been for decades.
You have zero info on whether they withheld information but we have a pattern of behavior to indicate that they probably did. It's much more logical to go with the latter than your desire to believe they fully disclosed everything.
(a) "probably" wouldn't cut it
(b) there's nothing legally wrong with corporate secrecy per se
(c) even if...you'd have to show damages related to this...something near impossible to do in this economy...everything's down. Where would be your direct result damages?
Hopefully someone will step and tell all these folks that they have nothing to sue for because Apple has done nothing wrong. I personally don't want the company having to waste time and resources on a bunch of BS lawsuits (setting aside that I do think that they could go after the so called reporters that have slandered/libeled them and Steve). I want them to concentrate on getting me a better iphone and a better imac, like yesterday.
I'm probably going to get flamed for this given the general mood of the thread, but you're dead wrong. It has nothing to do with the prior performance of the stock. I know someone who bought stock last week on Job's word that everything was fine. Knowing what we know now, he wouldn't have. Only the stock isn't worth as much as it was last week (94.58 versus ~80 now). While most of that drop happened during the week, the stock is down 4% since the close yesterday, and one could make a case that the drop is attributable to this news. Point is, he's lost money because of this, and a lot of other people have to.
Cut them some slack. Apple's iconic leader is having health issues. Stuff like that is rarely quick and easy to define or handle. It ultimately starts with the individual seeking council. This doesn't happen by itself. And even if he suspected he had to take some serious time off at one point it was probably a decision he didn't want to make, but was strongly advised by his doctors.
Let's wish Steve a healthy recovery and Apple some steady progress in the meanwhile.
And hey, Apple doesn't have to be a stock company. They have no debts, a lot of money, and do fine without the stock holders. So I'd advise the stock holders not to jump the gun.
And if Steve had dropped dead of a heart attack or was hit by a car a day before this announcement, do you think your stock would be in any better shape?
This falls in the category of common sense, people. If Steve Jobs is such an integral part of Apple, then that is a factor you must well take into account in buying the stock. Anything could happen to him (like any other human being) in a split second, so it's part of the risk in buying this stock. To never take that into account is simply poor stock analysis on the buyer's part.
In fact, considering all the lead ups over the last few years concerning Steve's health, I find it very disingenuous to act like this caught anyone off guard to the risk involved in buying Apple stock.
If you want to pursue this simply from the standpoint of a conspiracy coverup, good luck. I doubt you're going to find anyone or any document or any email within Apple that so callously discusses such a scenario concerning Steve Jobs in that manner. That kind of person simply would not work there.
This country is nothing more than litigation hell.
... a matter which has undoubtedly played a major role in driving the company's share price to less than half of its 52-week high of $192.24. [/url][/c]
That's a moronic statement, and displays lack of knowledge of Finance 101 on the part of whomever said it. AAPL has a beta (ß)* of about 2, i.e., it would be expected, on average to move about twice as much as the market does, on either side. Nothing more, nothing less, here.
* The ß is a standardized measure of the sensitivity of an individual stock to movements in the market as a whole. Stocks with ß < 1 will fluctuate less than the market and those with ß > 1, more. The ß, in turn, is a function of the type of business(es) you choose to be in. For instance, mature cash flow businesses will generally have lower ßs, while growth stocks higher ßs. Given its products, a company such as Apple would be expected to have a high ß.
blame on the short seller who benefit on the news. I believe those guys who brought on the suits might be have medical condition in the future without one drop of effect on stock market.
Get well soon Steve. The tech is waiting for next wonder toy.
Some of this might help (since you were eating fruit in your early years, a bit of sea food might be good):
"Pure biological life-prolong product
Document Type and Number:
United States Patent Application 20030118661 Kind Code: A1
Abstract:
This invention opens a prescription of a pure biological life-prolong product. The product is made from the following ingredients in weight proportion: soft-shelled turtle 100, ageratum 2-5, ginseng 2-5, and glucose 2-5. Every ingredient is ground into powder and mixed together in proportion; then add an appropriate amount of water, boil by slow fire and filtrate into aqua form, or dry the filtrate and extract into powder form, bolus form or tablet form. This medicine can improve human immune functions, accelerate human metabolism by the increase of cell division and cell regeneration so as to reach the goal of cancer prevention and treatment, youth keeping and life prolong."
How are people sure something did NOT change in the last week?
At MWSF, Jobs just said he would keep on running the company. Why bother to lie about that? It's not like stepping down for months can be hidden--nor did he try to.
So I'd say something DID change (news from doctors, progress of treatment, change in symptoms, whatever) to make Steve decide--just recently--to step down for a time.
He could have been lying a week ago, knowing he'd step down while saying he wouldn't. But it doesn't make enough sense to be so SURE of it.
As a doctor, I cannot believe that it took them this long to realize that it was a malabsorption issue due to a lack of pancreatic enzymes. He should have been on replacement therapy from the time of his surgery. This is malpractice. A simple 24 hour stool collection to quantitate fat content (shouldn't be there if the remnants of his pancreas are working) would give the diagnosis. If that's what the problem is, I'm dumbfounded that it took this long for his doctors to figure it out. There must be more to the story.
How are people sure something did NOT change in the last week?
At MWSF, Jobs just said he would keep on running the company. Why bother to lie about that? It's not like stepping down for months can be hidden--nor did he try to.
So I'd say something DID change (news from doctors, progress of treatment, change in symptoms, whatever) to make Steve decide--just recently--to step down for a time.
He could have been lying a week ago, knowing he'd step down while saying he wouldn't. But it doesn't make enough sense to be so SURE of it.
Y'know, one's medical condition can be a very tricky thing. Doctors can easily misdiagnose things, and conditions can change very quickly also. I have first hand experience of that. People are not machines or computers with simple, mechanical or plug-in cures.
How are people sure something did NOT change in the last week?
At MWSF, Jobs just said he would keep on running the company. Why bother to lie about that? It's not like stepping down for months can be hidden--nor did he try to.
So I'd say something DID change (news from doctors, progress of treatment, change in symptoms, whatever) to make Steve decide--just recently--to step down for a time.
He could have been lying a week ago, knowing he'd step down while saying he wouldn't. But it doesn't make enough sense to be so SURE of it.
Take a step back for a moment. Pretend you aren't an Apple fanboy (if you're spending time posting in the Apple insider forums, you're a fanboy... and so am I ). In the current corporate climate with top executives at companies monumentally stupid things, do you genuinely believe that anyone will give them the benefit of the doubt? If this was Citicorp or GM, do you think that they would deserve the same consideration? Whatever the case is, it LOOKS like this famously secretive and private company was trying to hide something.
You actually proved their point, not yours. IF your wife were company whose profits were based on consistently providing warm/hot coffee AND your wife went out of her way to assure investors that there would be absolutely no interruption in the supply of said coffee AND then she supplied cold coffee with no advance warning or explanation, THEN actually yes, you would be able to sue her and the SEC would investigate. Perhaps you need to learn a bit more about what scrutiny a company agrees to when they go public.
I just wanted to point out that this is a bad analogy. If we take this "cold coffee lawsuit" and transpose it back onto the Apple situation, the suit would only go ahead if Jobs actually caused some kind of material failure at Apple due to his sickness. You've gone from arguing about disclosure to arguing about material harm and it doesn't seem to be relevant IMO.
Overall, I would think that shareholders could only sue if the board could be proven to have lied and that this lie could be proven to have caused some material harm. Outrage doesn't (or at least shouldn't) count for anything, but perhaps the USA is different in this matter.
The only thing I can see happening here is that shareholders who lost money on Apple stocks will get together and argue that the stock market went down because of these shenanigans, but that's almost impossible to prove. At this writing the stock is down, but the drop is within "normal" (lately) week to week fluctuations and also in the middle of a gigantic recession.
Arguing in court over what particular things did or did not contribute to the market mentality that has caused Apple stock to drop seems like a Sisyphean task IMO. Knowing that it's the litigious USA, people will certainly try. They will likely only cause further stock price drops, a lot of bad publicity and a lot of unnecessary trouble however, when they could have merely chosen to be adult about it.
Apple is in the business of making computers and peripherals. As a matter of their business model, they allow people to buy shares in the company in order to raise capitol and spread risk and reward. They are not - as is often glibly quoted - in the business of making money for their shareholders.
They should make money for investors, they likely will do so regularly as the value of the company increases, and every so often they might not. Shareholders have to understand they are in for better or worse. If you don't like how much money you're making with AAPL then sell it.
Suing the company that is not making enough short term money for your taste is (a) indicative of a very poor understanding of investments and (b) throwing gasoline on any existing flames as you will drain capital from the company itself with your lawsuit and its associated direct costs of litigation not top mention the compounded flight from AAPL stock value.
Comments
Who here hasn't been sick and then got highly optimistic as soon as they started getting better? Steve's letter last month sounds like someone who just found out what was wrong and was feeling optimistic about getting better.
Medicine is complicated, and Steve's pancreatic cancer just make things even more complicated in diagnosing and treating what's wrong. He thought he was getting better according to his own public disclosure. There were no intentionally misleading statements.
Any attempt to sue would just be a way for someone to throw more money away after their panic driven sale of apple shares that they bought NOT because the company is solid, but because of a person in that company! What a ridiculous premise to buy shares!
that's not why they are suing.
the suits are coming from folks that want blame the drop in Apple's stock, not on the general economy, but on Steve's health. and a bogus claim that Apple owed it to them to fess up all along that he was 'dying' blah blah.
but here's the thing. there are no laws demanding that a company violate any executives privacy. no laws that demand that a CEOs business be made public. So long as Steve can do his job, which is to guide Apple's product line development etc, his business is his business. That's according to the law.
Steve had cancer in 2005-6, yes. look at what has happened with Apple during that time and during his recovery. No stall outs, no drop off in releases.
What we get is a guy who had half his GI tract removed (which begs the question why is anyone shocked he's lost weight and having weight issues when you can google the procedure and side effects in about 5 seconds) still getting up there and doing all the things he did before. Perhaps when he should have taken it a bit easy.
He's dealt with the stress of the rumors without tantrums. but instead by continuing to do his job and push Apple to release the best products they can and to offer the best service they can in their stores. All that changed was perhaps understanding that he could no longer be the only public face of the company at things like Macworld and WWDC or the rumors would never die. So he started bringing up the other brains with him to show folks, in vain it seems, that he's not the company. just a part of it. That he's set things up so that this time when he leaves, it won't be another fiasco. So leave the past in the past and stop freaking out.
Hopefully someone will step and tell all these folks that they have nothing to sue for because Apple has done nothing wrong. I personally don't want the company having to waste time and resources on a bunch of BS lawsuits (setting aside that I do think that they could go after the so called reporters that have slandered/libeled them and Steve). I want them to concentrate on getting me a better iphone and a better imac, like yesterday.
It's hard to prove that this was a long term issue that was known about all along,
on the contrary, it is. the guy had a Whipple done. that takes out half your digestive system. of course there are going to be long term effects.
what is hard to prove is if they knew from day one that the effects would end up this bad even without the added stress of all the rumors etc. In other words, if the current sitch is partly to blame for things being as bad as it is.
and regardless is the issue of whether, like these suits claim, Apple owed anyone open disclosure from day one. Right now, the lack of laws demanding such honestly says no. which is why these suits are going to be tricky. The shareholders will claim that the lack of information hurt the stock price and caused them damage. And Company will counter that it was shareholders who put too much onto the rumors etc and sold out and caused the damage themselves so Apple ain't to blame for that. and to a degree, Apple is right. Too much focus by the media and the shareholders and not enough on the products of the company has led to a lot of this 'downfall'
You're serious? This is Apple and Steve Jobs we're talking about. They get off on withholding information. They have an extensive history of suing people who leak information. They're secretive and have been for decades.
withholding information about upcoming releases to avoid a competitor beating them to the punch is one thing. And understandable. Do you really think that Microsoft doesn't keep a few things hidden. you bet your bottom they do. maybe not as tightly as Apple but with that huge chunk of the market, they don't need to.
You have zero info on whether they withheld information but we have a pattern of behavior to indicate that they probably did. It's much more logical to go with the latter than your desire to believe they fully disclosed everything.
withholding info about upcoming products is one thing. violating a company members privacy is another.
No one is suing because of product secrecy. No one is claiming that R&D secrecy has dropped the stock prices. they are claiming that Apple not giving it up that their great Rock God Steve Jobs is about to kick it and shuffle off any day now, is what killed their precious stock prices. That Apple owed them an explanation from day one. Blah blah.
and right now, the laws disagree. No where is there anything that says that a company 'owes' anyone private info about any major player so long as the person isn't breaking any laws and can do his job. And even then they might not (well the former probably, the latter is the question)
You actually proved their point, not yours. IF your wife were company whose profits were based on consistently providing warm/hot coffee AND your wife went out of her way to assure investors that there would be absolutely no interruption in the supply of said coffee AND then she supplied cold coffee with no advance warning or explanation, THEN actually yes, you would be able to sue her and the SEC would investigate. Perhaps you need to learn a bit more about what scrutiny a company agrees to when they go public.
your analogy is garbage.
one because it is the company that is under scutiny, not the people in it. that's the point to this whole game. to try to change the laws to say that the company owes it to the shareholders to banish a CEO or any officers privacy and report on his/her private affairs.
two, because Apple's products are not proven to be in jeopardy. IF it was proven that Jobs designs everything down to the last detail and tells no one anything about how to make the product, run it, etc. then you might have cause to make a claim. but we all know that to not be true with Apple. We've seen the people, heard from the people, Jobs has introduced the other people. And I can bet you that Apple's next ten years of plans are already written down, subject to changes in technology of course, with a core mission plan that would likely take them the next 50 years. even without Steve
to use your wife in a better analogy to what the shareholders are claiming:
your family is a company. the sole source of income is a coffee cake that your wife bakes and sells. She uses a family recipe passed down from generation to generation to the women of the family. It has never been written down. Your wife dies in a tragic baking accident, and takes the recipe to her grave. rendering you unable to continue the business at the same level of success because you don't know the recipe.
as I said, so very much not the case with Apple. And hopefully the courts will agree and shut all this up once and for all and Apple can get back to making their products without distraction. and Steve can have a nice recovery at home, with a few ichat sessions to be 'present' at board meetings and such, so when he returns it will feel like he never left. And without all the stress perhaps he'll be back sooner than expected. Which would shut up the naysayers even more
Who here hasn't been sick and then got highly optimistic as soon as they started getting better? Steve's letter last month sounds like someone who just found out what was wrong and was feeling optimistic about getting better.
this isn't really anything new. It's just a followup to the last letter. Steve said it was a treatable problem but wouldn't be overnight. why is anyone shocked that he's taking a leave. all of this is because he didn't say that last time. but maybe last time he didn't have the plans finalized. imagine if he had said he was taking a leave but didn't spell out that he was still going to be involved and who was playing his eyes and ears during his absence. just as much if not more chaos.
Medicine is complicated, and Steve's pancreatic cancer
is over and done. He HAD cancer. a rare but totally treatable form of cancer. it was removed. end of story. no longer an issue and folks need to drop it.
this is all about the surgery that was done. Look it up. It's called a Whipple. And it removes a huge chunk of your intestines among other things (including a chunk of your hormone producing pancreas). None of this should really be a shock. It was always among the side effects, if anyone had bothered to educate themselves.
the stress of dealing with all this garbage likely hasn't helped. but at no one after the surgery has Steve been dying etc.
and consider that most of this crap about him dying blah blah started at the same time that the economy started tanking over all. gas prices were soaring, unemployment was rising. it reeks of folks looking for something else to blame so they figure it must be Steve Jobs is dying and that's why their Apple stock is slipping.
"a matter which has undoubtedly played a major role in driving the company's share price to less than half of its 52-week high of $192.24."
I think if one looks carefully at the stock market it is possible to find a lot of stocks that have tumbled in this same period. The reality is that AAPL was widely held by institutions and hedge funds that had to produce lots of cash over the last three months of 2008 due to the credit crisis. I am not defending Apple per se, but to say that this health issue played a major role in the past years decline is to be either completely ignorant of the financial markets in general or to have an agenda based on the outcome of these lawsuits.
Exactly. The economy crashing is what brought all stocks down, not Steve Jobs' health issues. Apple will continue to do just fine without Steve. Steve replaced the entire management team when he returned in 1997. So the team that almost bankrupt the company has been long gone for over 10 years. You also can't claim you were unaware of his health issue since his cancer was made public 5 years ago. So as the one attorney commented, it would be very hard to prove you were misled when his health was already a known issue (and that the economy is what caused the major crash in the stock, not his health).
It's sick that it is an Issue... but as long as the Media percieves it to be an Issue, to those with a financial stake, IT IS an Issue that costs them Money... BIG MONEY! you lose your house by an acto of god, and your insurance company sais no way... you just going to sit there and say oh me oh my??? I doubt it.
why should stock holders?
As one human to another, Steve, I wish you the best in your recovery.
You're serious? This is Apple and Steve Jobs we're talking about. They get off on withholding information. They have an extensive history of suing people who leak information. They're secretive and have been for decades.
You have zero info on whether they withheld information but we have a pattern of behavior to indicate that they probably did. It's much more logical to go with the latter than your desire to believe they fully disclosed everything.
(a) "probably" wouldn't cut it
(b) there's nothing legally wrong with corporate secrecy per se
(c) even if...you'd have to show damages related to this...something near impossible to do in this economy...everything's down. Where would be your direct result damages?
Hopefully someone will step and tell all these folks that they have nothing to sue for because Apple has done nothing wrong. I personally don't want the company having to waste time and resources on a bunch of BS lawsuits (setting aside that I do think that they could go after the so called reporters that have slandered/libeled them and Steve). I want them to concentrate on getting me a better iphone and a better imac, like yesterday.
I'm probably going to get flamed for this given the general mood of the thread, but you're dead wrong. It has nothing to do with the prior performance of the stock. I know someone who bought stock last week on Job's word that everything was fine. Knowing what we know now, he wouldn't have. Only the stock isn't worth as much as it was last week (94.58 versus ~80 now). While most of that drop happened during the week, the stock is down 4% since the close yesterday, and one could make a case that the drop is attributable to this news. Point is, he's lost money because of this, and a lot of other people have to.
Let's wish Steve a healthy recovery and Apple some steady progress in the meanwhile.
And hey, Apple doesn't have to be a stock company. They have no debts, a lot of money, and do fine without the stock holders. So I'd advise the stock holders not to jump the gun.
Orwellian. And, sad.
This falls in the category of common sense, people. If Steve Jobs is such an integral part of Apple, then that is a factor you must well take into account in buying the stock. Anything could happen to him (like any other human being) in a split second, so it's part of the risk in buying this stock. To never take that into account is simply poor stock analysis on the buyer's part.
In fact, considering all the lead ups over the last few years concerning Steve's health, I find it very disingenuous to act like this caught anyone off guard to the risk involved in buying Apple stock.
If you want to pursue this simply from the standpoint of a conspiracy coverup, good luck. I doubt you're going to find anyone or any document or any email within Apple that so callously discusses such a scenario concerning Steve Jobs in that manner. That kind of person simply would not work there.
This country is nothing more than litigation hell.
... a matter which has undoubtedly played a major role in driving the company's share price to less than half of its 52-week high of $192.24. [/url][/c]
That's a moronic statement, and displays lack of knowledge of Finance 101 on the part of whomever said it. AAPL has a beta (ß)* of about 2, i.e., it would be expected, on average to move about twice as much as the market does, on either side. Nothing more, nothing less, here.
* The ß is a standardized measure of the sensitivity of an individual stock to movements in the market as a whole. Stocks with ß < 1 will fluctuate less than the market and those with ß > 1, more. The ß, in turn, is a function of the type of business(es) you choose to be in. For instance, mature cash flow businesses will generally have lower ßs, while growth stocks higher ßs. Given its products, a company such as Apple would be expected to have a high ß.
Get well soon Steve. The tech is waiting for next wonder toy.
Some of this might help (since you were eating fruit in your early years, a bit of sea food might be good):
"Pure biological life-prolong product
Document Type and Number:
United States Patent Application 20030118661 Kind Code: A1
Abstract:
This invention opens a prescription of a pure biological life-prolong product. The product is made from the following ingredients in weight proportion: soft-shelled turtle 100, ageratum 2-5, ginseng 2-5, and glucose 2-5. Every ingredient is ground into powder and mixed together in proportion; then add an appropriate amount of water, boil by slow fire and filtrate into aqua form, or dry the filtrate and extract into powder form, bolus form or tablet form. This medicine can improve human immune functions, accelerate human metabolism by the increase of cell division and cell regeneration so as to reach the goal of cancer prevention and treatment, youth keeping and life prolong."
At MWSF, Jobs just said he would keep on running the company. Why bother to lie about that? It's not like stepping down for months can be hidden--nor did he try to.
So I'd say something DID change (news from doctors, progress of treatment, change in symptoms, whatever) to make Steve decide--just recently--to step down for a time.
He could have been lying a week ago, knowing he'd step down while saying he wouldn't. But it doesn't make enough sense to be so SURE of it.
How are people sure something did NOT change in the last week?
At MWSF, Jobs just said he would keep on running the company. Why bother to lie about that? It's not like stepping down for months can be hidden--nor did he try to.
So I'd say something DID change (news from doctors, progress of treatment, change in symptoms, whatever) to make Steve decide--just recently--to step down for a time.
He could have been lying a week ago, knowing he'd step down while saying he wouldn't. But it doesn't make enough sense to be so SURE of it.
Y'know, one's medical condition can be a very tricky thing. Doctors can easily misdiagnose things, and conditions can change very quickly also. I have first hand experience of that. People are not machines or computers with simple, mechanical or plug-in cures.
How are people sure something did NOT change in the last week?
At MWSF, Jobs just said he would keep on running the company. Why bother to lie about that? It's not like stepping down for months can be hidden--nor did he try to.
So I'd say something DID change (news from doctors, progress of treatment, change in symptoms, whatever) to make Steve decide--just recently--to step down for a time.
He could have been lying a week ago, knowing he'd step down while saying he wouldn't. But it doesn't make enough sense to be so SURE of it.
Take a step back for a moment. Pretend you aren't an Apple fanboy (if you're spending time posting in the Apple insider forums, you're a fanboy... and so am I
You actually proved their point, not yours. IF your wife were company whose profits were based on consistently providing warm/hot coffee AND your wife went out of her way to assure investors that there would be absolutely no interruption in the supply of said coffee AND then she supplied cold coffee with no advance warning or explanation, THEN actually yes, you would be able to sue her and the SEC would investigate. Perhaps you need to learn a bit more about what scrutiny a company agrees to when they go public.
I just wanted to point out that this is a bad analogy. If we take this "cold coffee lawsuit" and transpose it back onto the Apple situation, the suit would only go ahead if Jobs actually caused some kind of material failure at Apple due to his sickness. You've gone from arguing about disclosure to arguing about material harm and it doesn't seem to be relevant IMO.
Overall, I would think that shareholders could only sue if the board could be proven to have lied and that this lie could be proven to have caused some material harm. Outrage doesn't (or at least shouldn't) count for anything, but perhaps the USA is different in this matter.
The only thing I can see happening here is that shareholders who lost money on Apple stocks will get together and argue that the stock market went down because of these shenanigans, but that's almost impossible to prove. At this writing the stock is down, but the drop is within "normal" (lately) week to week fluctuations and also in the middle of a gigantic recession.
Arguing in court over what particular things did or did not contribute to the market mentality that has caused Apple stock to drop seems like a Sisyphean task IMO. Knowing that it's the litigious USA, people will certainly try. They will likely only cause further stock price drops, a lot of bad publicity and a lot of unnecessary trouble however, when they could have merely chosen to be adult about it.
They should make money for investors, they likely will do so regularly as the value of the company increases, and every so often they might not. Shareholders have to understand they are in for better or worse. If you don't like how much money you're making with AAPL then sell it.
Suing the company that is not making enough short term money for your taste is (a) indicative of a very poor understanding of investments and (b) throwing gasoline on any existing flames as you will drain capital from the company itself with your lawsuit and its associated direct costs of litigation not top mention the compounded flight from AAPL stock value.