RIMM, AAPL tarred and feathered by mutual funds?

Nasdaq down just 7 points, but Apple ($182.22, -$2.07, -1.1%) and Research in Motion ($113.82, -$8.26, -6.8%) got pummeled. Why? Some theories.

• This is November 30, end of year for mutual funds, which begged for profit-taking. The swoons today were in chunks, huge volume chunks, not your retail investor type of move down.
• Big run-up from the recent low of 97 gave sellers reason to get out.
• MMs shook out all weak hands, taking advantage of an overall optimistic atmosphere (Kohn + Big Ben = Santa Claus) in these two tech bellweathers.

The sad thing is, I've normally gotten good prices on my top/favorite stocks precisely in this kind of selloff. Friday buys, late in the day, have been good to me. This would've been a prime example since RIMM dipped below 113 after opening at 124. Instead, I bought on an early dip at 120, completely naive about what was to come. AAPL got as low as 180+ before rallying to 182+ at the close.

Still, if my theory about the mutual funds is right, they'll be buying back in next week, and 113 will be history.

Piper Jaffray? Sure. Their channel checks may be justified. They probably unloaded more RIMM onto the market than any other institution. But they released their news after the market had opened, right into the high at 124, if they truly did sell today. The fact that the checks were done strictly in the U.S. is an easy way for PJ to justify the lower target price (from 137 to 134). In two weeks from now, will we hear from PJ that European channel checks were fantastic? Or that sales in China are booming? That the price target is back up to 137? Wouldn't surprise me.

Again, no matter what the mood, technicals win out. Technically, nobody should've been buying RIMM this morning. However, 112-113 is where the 50-day simple moving average is. RIMM was a buy, by my book, in the final hour of today's session. Becoming technically sound is a lot harder than it sounds.

Biggest lesson I have not learned: Set a tight stop-loss. In this case, a 1% stop-loss would've had me out of my RIMM swing shares at 119.30. Bearable, no pun intended. Darvas was right. Always set stop-loss no matter how giddy or optimistic the market appears.