• CNN Money/Fortune , Tuesday, September 30, 2008 10:45 AM

Apple's shares plunged 18% Monday -- the sharpest sell-off of the company's stock in eight years -- following an analyst's downgrading of the stock based on a survey suggesting that sales were cooling off. But Philip Elmer-DeWitt points out that the survey is open to different interpretations, and that "Mac purchases have been trending up even as computer purchases across the board have been slumping."

While sales are indeed cooling, Elmer-DeWitt suggests that RBC Capital analyst Mike Abramsky's report may have caused an overreaction in the marketplace.

Can you imagine a marketing campaign that with the impact that an analyst's report, apparently based on an ambiguous survey, wields? Not even the Mac guy could, I'd venture. But the more I see the PC Guy clone trying to convince me that Microsoft is hip, the more I disagree with critics like Adweek's Barbara Lippert and Slate's Farhad Manjoo that the ads are at least a step in the right direction. They seem awfully defensive to me. But, then, I'm a Mac guy.

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