As the stock option vapor over App...

As the stock option vapor over Apple Computer Inc. darkened, investors forward Friday tried to determine whether the company's popular consequences are powerful enough to get the better of the potential accounting and legal risks facing the maker of the iPod and the Macintosh.

The possibility that the improper handling of employee stock options might erase near of Apple's past profits or, smooth worse, plunge its renowned CEO Steve do job-works into a legal morass spook an investors. Apple shares shed $129 or 185 percent to $6830

"You can't spin this as dutiful news," Standard & Poor's analyst Richard Stice said Friday.

Besides jumbling its past earnings and raising worries about Jobs' possible part in the scandal, Apple's stock option disarranges could lead to other complications.

While it reviews possible revisions to its past profits, Apple count upons to miss a deadline for filing its greatest in number recent quarterly report with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The moot points also expose Apple to legal hassles that augment beyond Jobs, who is widely regarded as the fundamental note to the company's success.

Investors might be more forgiving with Apple because the iPod's succes has propell the Cupertino, Calif.-based company onward a hugely profitable streak that mostly analysts expect to continue.

Copyright CHICAGO SUN-TIMES 2006

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