Something called Oracle Investment Research downgrades Apple from ‘Buy’ to ‘Hold’; stock declines

“Believe it or not, Apple shares can go down,” Steven Russolillo reports for The Wall Street Journal. “The stock is selling off this afternoon, one day after the tech juggernaut surpassed Microsoft as the largest U.S. company ever, measured by stock-market value.”

“Shares are down 1.8% at $653.32, reversing earlier gain,” Russolillo reports. “The stock hit a fresh all-time high of $674.88 in midday trading, but started selling off as word circulated that a research outfit called Oracle Investment Research had downgraded Apple to hold from buy. (We’ll admit, we had never heard of this firm until today when news of the downgrade starting spreading across Twitter).”

MacDailyNews Note: We just searched our database of some 40,000 Apple-related articles and found zero mentions of “Oracle Investment Research.” Their downgrade of AAPL has been iCal’ed.

Russolillo reports, “‘The hype concerns us,’ Oracle’s Laurence Balter wrote in a note to clients, as he compared the current frenzy to when Microsoft and Cisco Systems previously were market-cap kings. He cut his price target to $650 from $670.”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Oh, yeah? Well, we heard that Fred’s Bank just upgraded Apple from “Buy” to “Sell Your House, Car, All Your Furniture and Go All-In” just minutes ago!

We find it difficult to believe that a no-name downgrade could have any significant negative impact on the stock.