9: Troy Wolverton, Neil Cavuto, and the Apple Stock Scandal

This is a great piece, at Roughly Drafted, for Apple lovers. Why does Apple seem to get a bad press when Microsoft is ignored for doing the self same things? It's not just jealousy:

It's The Apple Manipulators.

Apple is getting so much bad press compared to Microsoft because it is growing. Microsoft's stock is flat despite impressive revenue growth and profits. After peaking with the dotcom bubble in 1999 at $58 shares, it’s fallen into a $30 slump ever since. In the last ten years, Microsoft's stock is only up 69.8%.

Apple's stock also fell in 2000 with the tech crash, but began ramping up in 2004 and has climbed dramatically since. In those same ten years, Apple's stock has gone up 3440.9%. Microsoft presents little opportunity for stock manipulation. Even faced with the worst news, Microsoft is unlikely to go down, and even with record profits, it didn't go up.

Microsoft is a mature dinosaur; investors see little prospect for the company to dramatically grow into new businesses or to adapt with a changing climate. Apple, on the other hand, is closely watched by investors because it has delivered one major success after another.