By Graham K. Rogers

A few days ago, a report on Bloomberg falsely appeared to put words into the mouth of the CEO of Pegatron, one of Apple's suppliers. Philip Elmer-DeWitt was not convinced by what he read and wrote email to the CEO, Jason Cheng. He discovered that Tim Culpan had embellished his comments about falling demand - "Not just tablets, also e-books and games consoles, almost every item is moving in a negative direction" - adding the words, "A decline in revenue from the iPad Mini" when Cheng had been specifically asked by Culpan about the iPad and had declined to answer.

Despite being called out by Elmer-DeWitt and several subsequent writers, including me, neither Culpan nor Bloomberg have withdrawn, nor apologised for the false interpretation. Philip Elmer-Dewitt later added to the criticism with what he called "Bloomberg's lazy Apple bias". A further example of this was put out by Steven Sande on TUAW in a myth killer article, also aimed at Bloomberg reporting.

A report earlier today (17 May 2013) by Susan Decker and Adam Satariano on Bloomberg (carried by a number of sources worldwide without question), repeats a theme that has been floating around since the iPhone 5 was released. Coupled with the death of long-time CEO Steve Jobs, Apple is found wanting by many on Wall Street, who look only at the share price (and the cash fund). While no products have been released recently, Apple continues to add to its patent portfolio and there are some interesting expectations for the annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) to be held next month in San Francisco.

Bloomberg - who have also been accused recently of allowing reporters to log in to customers' terminals since the 1990s, a practice that was stopped only after public revelations earlier this month - conducted a survey of its customers by interviewing 906 of them, worldwide. As the population in the survey is of non-technical persons, with a more business-oriented approach, the results may be seen as somewhat biased, especially when Bloomberg's own anti-Apple reporting is factored in.

Cited several times in the report is Lionel Mellul of Sunrise Brokers. This appears to be the same Lionel Mellul whose Momentum Trading partners hedge fund, closed after 4 years, apparently "hurt by low volumes of hedge fund and other clients' trading" (James Heinsman, HedgeCrunch). Mellul himself is reported as saying, that hedge funds "are less willing to take risks in this environment. The whole market is contracting."

People like Mellul are never interested in the technical cachet of a company like Apple, they are like David Einhorn who tried to force Apple into making financial changes to the way its cash reserves are handled (he may have succeeded in a roundabout way). Just by coincidence, Einhorn features in a sidebar on the Bloomberg report of the survey.

Many of those surveyed looked at Samsung and made comments on the short term appearance. While Samsung is producing some exciting new products, Apple does not (and never has) worked in the same way. The Wall Street pundits want action and events day by day and will therefore never be satisfied with their short-term examinations of what Apple does. Of particular note were the comments about Apple TV and the iWatch which are (thus far) only rumours. To base investment advice on such smoke and mirrors says much about Wall Street - and about Bloomberg.

While the survey was carried out correctly, and those surveyed responded with their opinions as to how they see Apple and innovation, it is revealing in the narrow skills spread of those interviewed. What may also appear suspicious is that the survey was based on interviews, which were conducted worldwide all on the same day using their Bloomberg terminals (see above, re security). In the same poll (linked from the main article), respondents were asked to comment on which poses the biggest threat:

• Europe's debt crisis
• A slowing Chinese economy
• The size of the US dept and lack of agreement on how to address it
• Hostilities between Israel and Iran
• The regional instability and nuclear threat from North Korea
• The civil war in Syria
• Terrorism
• Escalating violence in Iraq
• None of these
• Have no idea (1% selected this).

Comments were also requested on General View of markets; Banks; Europe; Markets and positions; Asia; U.S.economy; Personalities, Obama and U.S,. Congress. All this was shown in much detail on the graphic that Bloomberg provided, but apart from the writing of Susan Decker and Adam Satariano and the Bloomberg pie chart, there is no survey evidence concerning Apple.

I wrote email to one of the editors shown at the end of the article (as Bloomberg always does): "You have the graphic showing a number of comments and opinions in the US and global markets, but despite Apple featuring in the article, there is no evidence of the survey results shown. Is this an oversight?"

Or is this another example of Bloomberg's Apple bias?

At the time of uploading the file, there had been no reply to the email.

See also:

• Concerns raised over Bloomberg terminals
• Bloomberg News Chief Matthew Winkler Apologizes For Terminal Spying Scandal
• Wall Street Gets A Taste Of Its Own Medicine In Bloomberg Terminal Scandal

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand where he is also Assistant Dean. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs.