With shares of the world’s most valuable listed stock falling hard, analysts are vexed to apoplexy trying to find bad things to say about a company they’ve loved for too long. The task is made more difficult because, for many on Wall Street, AAPL’s spectacular rise since 2009 has fattened their year-end bonus checks, paid for summers in the Hamptons and put their kids through college. Even so, Rick’s Picks found more than a few things to dislike about Apple well before its shares began to slump. Admittedly, we were inspired in part by the defects of iPhones owned and used by our loved ones. A running joke with my wife is that, when we’re traveling by car, I must maintain a constant speed of 55 mph to keep her iPhone fully charged. Rick’s Picks went as far as suggesting Apple’s cult of retail customers might eventually switch to competitors’ products simply because those products had become (much) cheaper. And better. That day hasn’t come, at least not yet, but it will arrive instantly if the stock market should fall far enough to trigger a global recession.

From a technical standpoint AAPL is due for a bounce. Notice in the chart that yesterday’s low got within a hair of a 113.01 target that had been two weeks in coming. Under the circumstances, we should expect the bounce to last at least 3-4 days; any less and Apple would be warning of another leg down. We’d consider it merely corrective, however, if it fails to exceed 104.63 to the downside. That’s where a key low was recorded in January, and its breach would generate a bearish impulse leg of weekly degree. That hasn’t happened in nearly three years, when AAPL was in the throes of a slide from 100 to 55, and it therefore behooves us to pay attention if the stock gets close. AAPL matters a great deal, of course — matters so much that if it has seen its bull market highs, so have U.S. stocks, and by implication all other stock markets around the world. _______ UPDATE (August 6, 6:37 p.m. EDT): AAPL has been holding its own in a weak market, but don’t expect it to swim against the tide.  If it gets pulled lower, use 112.34 for a minimum downside target, or 110.64, worst-case. Alternatively, a rally would likely push this brick up to 116.72. Anything above it would portend 118.06, or even 119.39. ________ UPDATE (August 9, 1:15 p.m.): AAPL carved out a presumably temporary low last week at 112.10, just 24 cents from the target given above.  The bounce was all short-squeeze, but we should be careful about getting in its way despite the temptation to short into any rally. This one would need to exceed 122.57 over the next few days to suggest DaBoyz have the muscle to wring more than just a few points from bears.