Wheeeee! Okay, so it wasn't a roller-coaster death drop like last Tuesday's "Redmond Justice"-inspired free fall, but the sizeable NASDAQ losses for the past three days were still fun to watch, in a prolonged downhill luge-run sort of way. Ordinarily-cocky investors we know have been wandering around with a dark, haunted look in their eyes. Frankly, we're surprised we haven't heard any stories on the news about an unexplained global phenomenon of day-traders' heads exploding. But hey, the week's not over yet-- and the thing that's so cool about the stock market is that greed and fear rule those numbers, not rational behavior. You don't have to be a "money person" to enjoy the market; you just have to appreciate the drama of human frailty distilled into numbers on a ticker. It's a beautiful thing.

Of course, what we're really interested in around here is how those wacky numbers are affecting good ol' Apple. Truth be told, Apple stock's had better days. On Wednesday it plummeted ten full points as the rest of the market fell. A casual observer might think this was odd, considering that Apple won another analyst upgrade to throw on the pile; according to a Reuters report, Kurt King of Banc of America Securities upped his recommendation from "Buy" to "Strong Buy" in preparation for next week's earnings announcement. (By the way, you have entered this quarter's Beat The Analysts contest, right?) AtAT viewers shouldn't find the resulting price dip surprising, though, since we've noted over and over again that AAPL often spikes downward following an analyst upgrade. It's just one of those quirky little things that makes the company so lovable.

On the other hand, while AAPL's falling after garnering praise, Microsoft's stock did the boring, predictable thing-- it fell following bad news. And we're not talking about last week's governmental smackdown, though that sure was an entertaining little sell-off. No, this time we're talking about Goldman Sachs analyst Rick Sherlund's lowered expectations for the company's quarterly sales, as reported by CNNfn. Apparently Sherlund thinks Microsoft will "only" pull in $5.75 billion this quarter, instead of $5.95 billion. (Some people have a really warped idea of what constitutes "bad news.") That little statement was enough to keep the stampeding sell-off rolling, further cementing Microsoft's role as "the one that popped the bubble." But don't worry-- there's always another bubble forming. (At broadcast time on Thursday, AAPL had rebounded 9 points and the NASDAQ was up 63. Even MSFT was up a point or two. See? Nothing to worry about.)