I suppose this week represented a huge test for Apple and the stock market. Knowing that Steve Jobs was going to be absent from Apple for five months, how would Wall Street react, particularly in light of the possibility that he might never return as CEO?

Well, some analysts suggest that the financial community has already allowed for that happenstance, particularly after reports that Jobs might be seriously ill first surfaced last summer. Yes, a fair part of the hit to Apple’s stock price might be due to the ongoing economic crisis. But questions about the health and stability not only of its CEO but of the company as a result are probably factored into those figures. As a result, the actual dip wasn’t quite as severe as some might have feared.

But if you’ve been depending on Apple to fund your retirement, you may have to put off the day when you can give up that day job — or night job. On the other hand, this doesn’t mean Apple is going to return to the bad days of the mid-1990s when everything seemed to be poised to fall apart and take the company down.

Story continued in this week’s Tech Night Owl Newsletter.

This article was posted on Sunday, January 18th, 2009 at 6:15 PM and is filed under News and tagged with: advertising campaign, Apple Macintosh, Apple Store, Bandwidth, Ceo, Computer, Day Job, Hardware, health, history, information, Intel, Iphone, Ipod, Jonathan Ive, Justin Long, Keynote, Mac, Night Owl, processor, RAM, Retrospect, server, Skeptics, Steve Jobs, Stock Price, stream, Talking Heads, Wall Street, Web, Wwdc.