Anyone Looked At Apple’s Stock Price Recently?

With all the public noise about the new 3G iPhones and the MacBook Air, we forgot about Apple’s stock price.

Just a year ago, Apple’s stock was considered the Wall Street darling. The stock price doubled since then, from just under $100 a share, to just over $200 a share.

A month ago, following January to March declines in the stock market, Apple’s ragged stock was officially named the crap stock of 2008. Now what?

What goes up, must come down, right? After all, Apple has helped make many people a little richer, healthier, and, recently, maybe a little more cautious as investor.

Am I the only one who thinks that it was just a few weeks ago that AAPL was languishing around in the mid-$20s? Today, I checked my Dashboard Stock Widget and got a healthy surprise.

AAPL was up another $2.80 and broke $175 a share, up from just $120 or so seemingly only weeks ago. In the past three months the Dow Jones Industrials have mostly flatlined, while AAPL shareholders took a bath, the bottom dropped out of the stock.

As of this week, Apple’s stock has once again risen from the ashes on the strength of, well, something. Rumors? The latest says Apple has ordered about 25-million 3G iPhones.

Yet another says Mac sales are continuing to grow 40-percent, year-over-year. Still another rumor says AT&T plans to subsidize 3G iPhone sales, dropping the price to $199 for buyers

Apple recorded another record quarter of financial performance with the year’s best quarters yet ahead. Do all those rumors have an effect on the company’s stock price?

Apparently so. Ever so quietly, with little fanfare, Apple’s stock price has climbed out of the doldrums of the $120s a share, up nearly 50 points, and within a month or so of the all time high, about $203 a share.

Why?

What is Apple doing today that it wasn’t doing three months ago when AAPL was in the dumper? The stock market is a fickle place, not for the faint of heart.

With the 3G iPhone introduction perhaps two months away, and the iPhone being launched in ever more countries with improved software and features, does $175 a share look like a bargain?

If so, what does the disaster of $120 a share look like only a month ago?

Financially, Apple is hot, rolling in money, gaining market share, improving cash flow, and now, after a momentary catch-your-breath dip, the stock is hot again, too.

The question of the day is, ‘Should you buy Apple stock now?’ If so, why? If not, why not?

Below is a quick look at the stock’s performance over the past six months, and compared with Dell and the Dow.

Where did you buy? Where did you sell?