Just to clarify something in case it isn't obvious already: we at AtAT aren't money people. We don't play the stock market (nor do we understand it), end-of-quarter financial numbers generally put us to sleep, and when that guy Alan Greenspan starts talking on TV we generally start channel-surfing to find a rerun of Gilligan's Island or something. Economics and high finance are the sorts of subjects that slip right through the fingers of our minds, which are far more interested in juggling details like who's going to be cast in the upcoming Buffy spin-off, how high to set the oven when cooking up a full bag of Tater Tots, and just where the hell we put that damn remote.

And yet, when the drier financial elements get applied to Apple, somehow it's not just palatable-- it's actually exciting. Thrills! Spills! More drama than you can shake a stick at! In particular, have you been watching Apple's stock lately? It managed to bust through the magical $50 barrier before finally closing at 49 7/8-- up two and a half bucks from the day before. More importantly, according to MacWEEK, AAPL's peak yesterday was actually the highest the stock's managed to climb in four years. Now that we look at it, based on a five-year chart, it seems like Apple's stock is the best it's been for the past sixty months-- though it looks like StockMaster's numbers are always a little different from those quoted elsewhere. (Just another one of those Wall Street vagaries we don't understand.)

Bravo for AAPL, which has seen stunning performance since those scary days when it was hovering at about 13 a year and a half ago. We expect a roller coaster ride in the next few weeks, because there are two big events that will almost certainly affect Apple's stock price. First of all, there's the scheduled announcement of Apple's Q3 financial results; that happens next Wednesday (and yes, a Beat The Analysts contest is coming very soon). In general, we've noticed that every time Apple announces numbers that are better than the analysts expected, the stock goes down for some reason. But a mere week later is the beginning of Macworld Expo and Steve Jobs' anxiously-awaited keynote address-- and who knows what surprises he has in store?