In years past when Apple participated in MacWorld Expos every six months, you could always count on a few things. New product announcements and stock manipulation. Well, they no longer attend the Expo (do they still exist?) but APPL stock manipulation still exists. It never fails. Whenever Apple is about to have an "event", especially a new product launch, stories begin coming out 2-3 weeks prior about their earnings past and projected. Some analyst will set the share's target price at an unrealistic price. Predictably the price slowly climbs over the following 2 weeks. A week prior to the event, those in the know begin selling shares. The stories now try to deflate the share price. If you'll notice Friday (Jan. 22, 2010) the stock dropped $10.32). Those same people then buy back in just before the event and now the stories and hype inflate the price. I have been watching this go on year after year.

The question is, what part does the blogosphere have in all of this? Are they complicit in running stories they obviously know are intended to manipulate the stocks? What do you think? Have you made money from this?