Please pardon any typos that may creep in today, but it's a little hard for us to see now that we seem to have picked up some sort of rare eye affliction; we took one look at Apple's stock price and our eyes immediately swelled to five times their usual size and our pupils turned into dollar signs. (Our jaws also hit the floor and our tongues popped out with a "ka-CHING!" sort of noise, but that's less incapacitating.) But really, isn't this all to be expected on any day that AAPL shoots up by over 13%? In addition to a raised price target of $49 from Merrill Lynch (who, according to faithful viewer wavedancer, thinks a whopping iPod-inspired Mac sales frenzy will commence as soon as IBM can supply the chips), the stock also received upgrades from both Bear Stearns and JPMorgan. The Bear Stearns one is particularly sweet, since it reverses the only downgrade that AAPL's received all year.

No doubt the price will recede a bit on Friday as end-of-week profit-takers cash out to go buy themselves yachts or whatever, but clearly there's all kinds of optimism for Apple's future right now. So forget for one moment all the rational reasons for the stock run-up, like Apple's massively increased profits and revenues, its soaring market share in the digital music arena, and its top secret formula of eleven herbs and spices that's often imitated but never matched, and let's talk about the real factor behind Apple's newfound level of support: the return of Steve Jobs. Granted, the stock was doing fine during his convalescence, but is it any coincidence that on the same day that Steve makes his first post-cancer public appearance in an Apple-running capacity, the company's stock price goes through the roof?

That's right, kiddies, according to the Associated Press, Phil Schiller's back on the bench; at today's official media unveiling of the new debigulated Apple retail stores, Uncle Steve did the honors of wrangling with the press. "Yes, I'm back," was reportedly his only comment on his return to health, but that was enough to send the stock skyward. Think we're nuts for saying so? Oh, sure, you can attribute part of Apple's current stock price to the company posting its best fourth quarter in nine years, we suppose, and you might even make a case for the unveiling of Apple's new mini-stores helping out a bit; as the photos at AppleInsider show, they really do look stunning, and hints that some of them might open in airports to sell iPods and Mac portables to the jet set officially qualify as "intriguing." But at the end of the day, it's all about The Man.

The moral of the story is this: if you ever find yourself in the position of being the shadowy mastermind pulling the strings behind the scenes of a multibillion-dollar international corporation, never underestimate the stock-pumping power of a CEO in a black mock turtleneck. Well, that and the uncanny ability to bend mere mortals to one's will. That's pretty useful, too.