Jobs Urges Apple Shareholders 'Hang in There'

Sure. Trust The Jerk, hang_in_there, dudes. Another dismal week in the tech sector continues to take its toll on Apple, it shareholders and, apparently, even its CEO. If a staff issued e-mail obtained by AppleInsider is to be believed, The Jerk is just as stunned by the company's stock dive as everyone else.

"Wow... what a remarkable last few days," he wrote. "Our stock is being buffeted around by factors a lot larger than ourselves."

With 5.54 million shares directly owned, Jobs is Apple's largest individual stockholder. As such, one could argue that the sting resulting from the company's recent losses is most acutely felt by the CEO. All told, Jobs has seen the value of his Apple holdings plummet from $1.126 billion just before Christmas to just over $770 million this week.

That's a paper loss of $354 million. And as Fortune recently noted, if you combine that with the loses he's experienced as Disney's top sharehold, Jobs has lost more the $1 billion in just over a month...on paper, of course.

And yet Apple's steward remains optimistic about his own company's future. In the same e-mail, he urged investors and shareholders to keep the faith, predicting that Apple's stock would eventually rebound.

As proof, Jobs compared Apple to other blue-chip tech companies like Google and Dell and noted that Apple has continued to outperform them since early 2007.

"I believe that investors who stay with us will be rewarded as the market's confidence is restored over time," he concluded. "Hang in there."

At the time of writing, Apple stock was up slightly from Mondays closing price of $130.

http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/01/steve-jobs-urge.html