AAPL Could Burn Emotional Investors

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Around this time last year, I was writing for Seeking Alpha. Readers lambasted me for Apple Bulls Are Wrong About The Impact Of A New CEO.

Apple (AAPL) bulls not only ripped me, they got dangerously emotional in the process.

During late March 2012, AAPL longs were all over Twitter rallying the troops against even a sniff of bearishness with Tweets such as: I'm expecting 50 trailing EPS when $AAPL reports Jan '13. Multiply by P/E expansion to 18 = PT 900. Ip5 frenzy could mean 1K/share. #GetIn, Portfolio now 90% $AAPL calls and bull call spreads going into April earnings. 600 was defended today, onward to 610 and Let's go 620 u can do it.

Those representative war cries come from late March 2012. There was still plenty of upside left in AAPL on the way to $700 so, in theory, that flavor of bull could have done quite well with the stock, even via options. Or they could have become even more confident, doubled down on calls and ended up one of the many who combined to lose millions upon millions as AAPL started to fall.

Because, when a battleground stock like AAPL starts to drop, many bulls not only double down, they start using emotionally charged words such as "defended," shouting cheers and making up inane price targets. They feel the need to follow through with the type of loyalty your grandfather expects you to show your country. It becomes a matter of personal and "national" pride. It's about as effective vis-à-vis real world outcomes as yelling at your television screen during a sporting event.

I sense this type of money-losing behavior rearing its head again. If you're Doug Kass, it's one thing to trade in and out of AAPL. If you can do that, more power to you. But, most of us lack the ability.

AAPL's up a few percent over the last week. On Tuesday, it tapped past $460 intraday. There's optimism once again from folks calling "the bottom" and recalculating price targets. There's this air that Samsung's joke of a smartphone launch reaffirms Apple's continued dominance. To a certain extent, I agree. The feeling bubbles under the surface that even if BlackBerry (BBRY) sees real success with the new "Zed 10," it won't make a big enough dent in Apple's mindshare or Android's marketshare to matter to Apple, Samsung or Google (GOOG). Again, I pretty much agree.

However, this does not remove the elephant from the room. It does not change the fact that the real reason AAPL turned up is because of chatter around a possible dividend-related move. How bad have things become when talk of an increased or special dividend is what we need to push AAPL higher?

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