Are the tables turning again? Wall Street analysts traditionally regard Apple with the sort of disdain the rest of us reserve for puppy-kickers and arsonists, but occasionally one or two will brighten up a bit and say something positive. Now, since analysts are herd creatures by nature, every once in a while an upbeat comment about Apple by one analyst leads another one to make a tentative nod of agreement. And if any analyst sees two other analysts agreeing about something, there's a decent chance that he or she will jump in as well-- and so on and so on. It doesn't happen often, at least as far as Apple is concerned, but once in a great while the Great Analyst Herd Instinct can work in Apple's favor. (You may recall the massive 400% stock run-up that accompanied a slow buildup of analyst upgrades in 1999.)

Could this be the start of something big? BusinessWeek reports that Michael Hillmeyer of Merrill Lynch ("one of Wall Street's biggest bears" as far as Apple is concerned) upgraded his "Sell" rating on AAPL to "Neutral" about a month ago-- only after Apple's stock had increased by about 35% since he had branded it as a stinker last January, we might add, but hey, better late than never. It seems he was forced to reconsider his position following the tremendous success of the iTunes Music Store, and after poking at prodding at the numbers in Apple's most recently quarterly report, he even grudgingly boosted his forecast for next fiscal year's revenues and earnings by 10% and 16%, respectively.

So since this is all coming from a well-known Apple sourpuss, will other analysts soon follow suit? We can only watch and wait, but we sure hope so, especially given AAPL's 10% drop over the past couple of days. What we need is a good ol'-fashioned stock run-up like in the days of yore ("YORE!!"); push AAPL back up into the 70s so we can cash out just enough to score a new Power Mac G5 or two. It'd be nice to get out before the earnings warning pushes the stock off a cliff for once. (C'mon, you know us; we'd buy it all back after the plunge.)

Meanwhile, what's up with that BusinessWeek article claiming that "the hottest rumor among Mac-erati these days" is "that Apple will sooner or later have to make the jump from PowerPC to Intel chips"? What the...? Is there anyone out there who takes the IntelMac speculation seriously these days? We don't doubt for a second that Apple keeps a top secret build of Mac OS X up to date on x86 iron just in case killer bees ravage IBM's Fishkill chip plant and Motorola gets called back to the eternally dark netherworld from whence it came, but just because you stock a fallout shelter with canned goods doesn't mean you're going to be eating corned beef hash three meals a day even if the missiles stay siloed. Whoever's rating the "hottest rumors" needs to re-examine his criteria...

By the way, could we possibly start another paragraph with a question? No, probably not.