I'm sad now.

So if Apple did get pulled from the market what happens to your shares?

ummmm?

what does this mean for shareholders and AAPL's value?

I doubt if Apple will be pulled. Apple discovered the problem and reported it - being proactive means a lot. They have also hired independent experts to resolve the issues ASAP in order to restate historic financial statements.

Shares may drop a bit for a while if people holding shares are worried about history. Those that are focused on the present and the future will keep the shares they have, or buy more when the stock goes down.

In looking at the future, moving all Macs to Core 2 in the very near future and the release of new iPods will be seem by most as more important than history. Shares should rebound, especially if Apple is selling every new iPod it can make.

Look at the bright side:

When Apple goes under ALA enron, Finalcut and OSX will be open source!

<ducks>

This is just a formality and nothing to get panicky about. When Apple announced that they would have to delay their filings, it was to be expected that they would get this notice. Now, they simply file something with NASDAQ informing them of the reason for the delay and seeking extension and business goes on as usual.

The interesting thing to me is how little AAPL has been affected by all of this uncertainty. There have been a couple of small drops, but Apple has counteracted it with other good news and a great track record. It almost seems like investors are relying on faith to hold on to these shares. I wish we could get some kind of estimate about how much historical financial statements will need restating and how much it is expected to affect the stock. It's a pain, because I have no info on what other investors are expecting the restatement to be like, so I don't know if they're underestimating the effect of this or if it's already been incorporated into the current price. Any ideas?