Cantillon: Apple stocks pulped by China syndrome

So, where are we in the world of heavyweight tech stocks? Apple told the world it had not sold as many iPhones as expected and investors had a hissyfit, with north of $60 billion being wiped off its value.

This, despite the fact that company increased its overall profits and revenue by a third – and more than doubled sales in the increasingly important Chinese market. Selling 47.5 million phones is nothing to be sneezed at in any man’s language.

Google, by contrast, saw roughly $65 billion added to its worth after it reported better-than-expected profit for the first time in six quarters last week, even if reported sales of $14.3 billion were only slightly ahead of forecasts.

The 16.3 per cent jump in its stock value following those results translates as the largest one-day wealth creation ever by any US stock.

Are there trucks driving around the silicon docks and valleys asking stricken iPhone users to bring out their dead?

Has there been a surge in Samsung use, akin to when middle-America dropped the Beatles in favour of the Monkees because of John Lennon's Jesus clanger?

Is Google doing anything different to what it has always been trying to do: take over the world? Cantillon thinks not.

This is classic balloon territory with investors throwing themselves into the bubble bath because Google can manage expectations and hurling themselves out claiming that Apple has gone cold.

And all because the Chinese, suffering from their own stock market woes, failed to buy as many gadgets as hoped for. Alan Greenspan’s “irrational exuberance” is alive and well.