Accursed analysts! They've dealt Apple's stock another downgrade-- this time from Charles Wolf of Needham & Co.-- which lopped another $2.53 off the share price, erasing all of the gains from... er... well, okay, from analyst upgrades made a few days before. But still, it seems mighty rude. Granted, maybe we should be blaming the investors, instead, since these downgrades are from "buy" to "hold," and investors clearly aren't holding, or else the stock wouldn't have dropped five or six bucks in the past few days. But you can't tell us that those analysts didn't know what would happen. For shame! And during the holidays, too!

The thing that's so irksome about the whole situation, though, is that none of these analysts is actually saying anything bad. Both of the ones who downgraded Apple's stock last week actually maintain price targets higher than the current share price, and one actually raised his earnings forecasts for Apple's fiscal 2005 and 2006. Sure, it's not as cool as setting a three-digit price target and pledging eternal faith in and allegiance to the Church of Steve, but it's still good stuff. Consider another example: faithful viewer frozen tundra informs us that in a CBS MarketWatch article (found via MacMinute), Rebecca Runkle of Morgan Stanley predicts that the personal computer market will experience a growth slowdown next year-- but that Apple still stands to gain.

Yup, while Runkle expects unit shipments of PCs to grow by only 9 percent next year, she figures that Apple shows one of "the best chances of gaining market share in 2005" because it should "continue to benefit from the momentum of the iPod and its recent new iMac release." Moreover, Runkle attributes the projected PC sales slowdown to a lack of "'meaningful acceleration' in the enterprise business sector"-- and since Apple generally doesn't sell Macs into the big business market (yet), the company could likely win a market share boost simply due to a heavier consumer ratio in the overall market mix.

All good stuff, right? And still more indication that Apple ought to have one heckuva fine 2005. Unfortunately, positive comments about potential market share increases like Runkle's mean squat to the stock price in light of a buy-to-hold downgrade, which is why we're so ambivalent about the whole analyst thing in the first place; you can get a roomful of them saying nice things about Apple and its prospects for the coming year, but as soon as one or two also mention that it might be a good time to stop buying more shares, blammo-- the price hits freefall. That said, we realize that it's unreasonable to expect a steady stream of upgrades all the time; after all, eventually all the analysts would rate AAPL a "buy," and there's be nowhere to go but down. What to do?

Simple: add more analysts! Why not? After all, an analyst is just "one that analyzes"; you apparently don't need a college degree or anything like that. As such, we volunteer: AtAT today announces that it initiates coverage of AAPL with a "hold," and on Monday we'll upgrade it to a "buy." On Tuesday we'll cease coverage of the stock, retire, and let someone else have a turn. Nothing but two or three upgrades a week for life! Any volunteers for slot number two? In order to get anyone to take you seriously as an analyst you might need a tie, but don't worry, ThinkGeek has some doozies-- and it's a small price to pay to keep AAPL swimming in life-giving upgrades.