Apple’s stock had tanked in January, falling as low as $US78.20, when Jobs said he had a hormone imbalance and the company announced that its founder would be taking a six-month medical leave. It has since made a choppy comeback as concerns about his health persist.

Thing is, as John Gruber accurately notes with a simple Google Finance chart, that isn’t entirely true.

To say this kind of odd Apple reporting from CNBC is “something new” would also be, of course, not entirely true. [CNBC via Daring Fireball via BBG]

Monster Cable, purveyors of grossly overpriced products, feel your pain during these tough financial times. That’s why they are reducing their ridiculous prices to slightly less ridiculous prices during the recession.

Now, founder and “Head Monster” Noel Lee is cutting prices on top-of-the-line cables for high-definition TVs, effective in June. An 8-foot HDMI cable that currently sells for $US129.95 at Best Buy will be priced at $US99.

On Monday, the company also lopped $US10 off the price of its most basic—but rarely stocked—HDMI TV cable, to $US29 for a 1-metre length. And it introduced two new lower-cost HDMI cables in 2-metre and 4-metre lengths for $US39.95 and $US59.95. Competitors’ cables of similar length can be found online for as low as $US5.

This just makes me laugh. As we pointed out in our “Truth About Monster Cable” series, buying high end cable is usually unnecessary. But hey, if people want to waste money on “the best” I can hardly blame Monster for selling it to them. As Noel Lee pointed out to USA Today: “It’s ironic, when people buy Monster, they don’t expect to pay (a) low price, so our lower-end cables don’t sell very well.” That’s probably true—the people who buy these things might view the price as an exclusive barrier to entry, and therefore part of the allure. It will be interesting to see if this price tactic actually improves sales. [USA Today]

Each F-22 costs $US143 million, and at stake is a $US9 billion proposal to build 60 more Raptors over the next three years. Defence Secretary Robert Gates is fine with axing the program (as was the Bush administration, who has of course deferred the decision), favouring instead the development of unmanned UAVs that are more adept at the reconnaissance and surgical strikes used in fighting terrorists, not the air-to-air dogfights that would have been expected when facing up to a Soviet superpower with its own modern air force. The L.A. Times cites one such unmanned project as “a small blimp equipped with an automated high-powered sniper rifle that could provide a form of inexpensive but effective air support for platoons in Afghanistan.”

The decision is a dicey one, because while saving money in the Pentagon’s budget, a decision to axe the F-22 would mean a loss of jobs and defence contracts for U.S. workers. Unsurprisingly, the F-22’s most vocal supporters are in Congress; the jet uses parts from 1,000 suppliers spread across 44 states. That’s a lot of pork, and if we know there’s one way to make someone sad, it’s take away their pork. The NYTimes quotes Democratic congressman Norman Dicks saying “I think we’re going to keep the F-22 going, that’s my gut instinct.” Someone tell this dude that “following your gut” is so over! [NYTimes, LA Times]

A list of the store closings has not been made available, but the breakdown will look like this: “45 stores in the Central U.S., 40 in the Northeast and Canada, 19 in the West and eight in the South.” They are also shutting down six of their 33 distribution facilities and scaling back openings to 20 in 2009. [Yahoo Finance via TG Daily]

The projections were reduced due to “downward pressure on PC unit sales”, not Vista or lawsuits. And indeed, when you study Microsoft’s decline the past few months that’s right in line with the S&P 500, it’s tough to blame anything but the generally crappy economy. [Seattle PI and Yahoo]

So what does this mean? Well, maybe you should consider buying your next iPod sooner rather than later to take advantage of our crappy economy consider getting any Poms, Yanks, or other tourists with a stronger dollar to buy you an iPod for Christmas. If they can afford it, that is…
[Australian IT]

Its handset division led sales for the whole company, selling almost 52 million phones, and pulling in roughly a third of its $US13.4 billion revenue. Interestingly, they’re using the Nokia strategy, with big pushes at the high- and low-end of the mobile market. If Samsung’s any indicator of the rest of the electronics industry—it’s probably a better one than Sony—times are tough, but the storm is weatherable. [RCR]

Part of their crappy outlook is thanks to a stronger yen, which makes exports more expensive, and its equity investments, but obviously the hard blow is coming from worse-than-expected sales of LCDs, digital cameras and video cams. Samsung and LG might fare better, but we’re looking forward to Microsoft’s earnings report today, since it might better indicate the health of the industry than Apple’s. [Forbes, Image: Shaggy6Six6/Flickr]