The Job's effect : Did Steve Job's death affect Apple.

Well obviously! But what I really wanted to know if it affected the share price. Lets look at some comparisons. Here are the stcks prices of Apple (and others) in comparison with the Dow Jones Industrial Average with the base year being October 2009 (monthly stock prices, no dividends)

So as shown, if you invested in Apple or Amazon, you would have outperformed the Dow by around 60%. Go team. The others, you would be treading water a bit, with the exception of Microsoft where you would be off roughly 20%. Poor Bill Gates!

However, if you make the date of Steve Job's death the base year (October 2011), it gets a little murkier

On this reading, Apple is pretty much treading water with the index, along with Microsoft, IBM is 20% off the Dow and it's Google and Amazon that are outperforming the market by around 16%.

So I don't think there is any doubt that Steve Jobs' death has made Apple a less attractive proposition from an investor point of view (even with that temporary surge in 2012), with that money going into Google and Amazon. Amazon, looks like the only sure bet from either 2009 or 2011. Go the cloud!