AAPL has been riding the stock market bubble but not as well as many others. There is nothing in Cook that will make Apple perform as it had under Jobs. Cook was merely a supply chain guy that kept his perverse lifestyle secret. Jobs gave him the job because the supply chain that Jobs built is what made the company strong operationally. But innovation-wise, Jobs could not find a successor and therein lies the slow death to be realized in the next 5 years.
The Jan 2014 Street article I posted the link for said it all, that Cook is following his handlers from Wall St. He has no new ideas. Following Wall St. fund managers is poison.
Remember too that after Cook took over that Apple had become a must-have stock from Wall St. funds. This is not the smart money. So after Cook took over, the stock had an afterglow from which it benefited.
As it stands now the short interest on AAPL is up dramatically.
LOL. Yeah all the way up to 2.96% of outstanding shares... Probably has to do with the 32% run up since June.