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The Cure for Apple in Your Portfolio

Written by: Oliver Pursche 04/05/12 - 1:41 PM EDT
Tickers in this article: SBUX GOOG AAPL CVS
The following commentary comes from an independent investor or market observer as part of TheStreet's guest contributor program, which is separate from the company's news coverage.

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- With the S&P 500 delivering its best first-quarter return since 1998, there's a growing concern, in my mind anyway, over the sustainability of this rally due to the approximately 15% contribution made by just one stock, Apple(AAPL) .

If you have been long AAPL, cheers. (If you are short, I just don't know what to say to you.) The company has far outpaced the overall market, gaining nearly 50% year to date. This has contributed an outsized 1.75% of the S&P's roughly 12% price return.

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If you were to strip Apple from the S&P 500 and eliminate its future earnings forecast, full-year 2012 earnings revisions for the S&P 500 would be 40% lower. This hasn't happened since 1999 with Microsoft(MSFT) and the tech boom, and we all know how that ended.