Apple Antitrust Suit May Predict Coming Market Decline [Study]

Study finds correlation between antitrust lawsuit timings, market peak .

Apple Antitrust Suit May Predict Coming Market Decline [Study]

The antitrust suit that the Justice Department threatened Apple with on March 7 may bear a wider significance for overall market trends. According to one recent study, U.S. government attacks on highly successful corporations historically correlate to stock market peaks. Major antitrust suits generally come just after the decline into a bear market. Growing negativity toward Apple in the social mood suggests we might be looking at the end of the most recent global stock rally.

So finds study author Mark Galasiewski, a researcher at Elliott Wave International (EWI) and the Socionomics Institute, both of Gainesville, Georgia. In Apple, Inc. — It’s Ripe For the Picking, Galasiewski points out rising popular backlash against Apple, the increasing susceptibility of Apple products to hacking attacks, derisive comments from Teamster President Jim Hoffa, and a 191-page FBI dossier detailing the “meanness” of the late Steve Jobs, as evidence of public negativity toward the corporation.

Galasiewski’s analysis of Apple follows up on a study conducted in May 2000 at the height of the U.S. government’s antitrust action against Microsoft Corporation. That study, done by the Institute’s executive director, Robert Prechter, traced the history of correlation between antitrust suits and market downturns. It showed that the U.S. government attacked Standard Oil ahead of the Panic of 1907; RCA ahead of the 1930-1932 stock market collapse that led to the Great Depression; and IBM one month after the 1969 top in the DJIA.

Prechter’s study also correctly predicted that the U.S. court decision against Microsoft in April 2000 would bode ill for equities. World stock markets declined for the next two and a half years.

Apple does not dominate its various markets as much as Microsoft, IBM, RCA and Standard Oil did when they attracted antitrust suits,” observes the study. But it’s nevertheless the “world’s largest technology company by revenue and profit, and the world’s largest company in terms of its market capitalization, which exceeded half a trillion dollars this week.”

There are a lot of “ifs” involved. But if the correlation between lawsuits and markets continues and if a federal judge hands down a decision against Apple and its partners soon, watch out for peaks, and downturns, and bears. Oh my.

One thought on “Apple Antitrust Suit May Predict Coming Market Decline [Study]

  1. Caveat Emptor

    Robert Prechter of Elliot Wave Theory was a well a prominent market forecaster in 1980s,he made SOME prediction that happened to be correct and that gave him his place among the other talking heads and so called Pish-Goo.
    His notoriety and public fame has ever since been declining and not many now days he is not considered among the elite forecasters of Wall Street—he has had his days!

    It is totally absurd and wrong to claim that the government anti-trust action against “RCA ahead of the 1930-1932 stock market collapse that led to the Great Depression;” this is hogwash! There is no significantly MEANINGFUL correlation between the two. There IS A HIGH POSITIVE CORROLATION between the quantity of ICE CREAM consumed in the summer and incidents of RAPE. Can we conclude that eating ICE CREAM CAUSES RAPE? The cause-effect relationship must be meaningful, and empirically verifiable.
    If APPLE implodes and or goes bankrupt in a blink of an eye, I can see the market tanking into the dark hole and the economy subsequently, with high degree of probability, going into a major down-turn.

    There are a lot of “ifs” as the report indicates, however “fear mongering” sometimes is lucrative. To subscribe to all five market forecast reports, Elliot Wave annual subscription rate is $3,960.00.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *