Bad Luck for Apple Inc. (AAPL), Good Luck for Research In Motion Limited (RIMM) or is it Vice Versa?

I know what you’re thinking. “Did Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) just fire off one hundred dollars from its share price in the last six months? Is Research In Motion Limited (USA) (NASDAQ:RIMM) poised to return from where it fell over five years ago?” Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But be that as it may, the tech sector is one of the most volatile in the world, and could easily blow your portfolio clean away. So before you play your hunch, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky?

Well, do ya, punk?

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), the iconic tech beacon of Cupertino, has been trending down recently. Some investors have shied away from its stock after hearing news like this from The Wall Street Journal:

Apple Inc.(NASDAQ:AAPL). has cut its component orders for the iPhone 5 because of weaker-than-expected demand, people familiar with the situation said Monday, indicating sales of the latest smartphone haven’t been as strong as anticipated.

Apple’s orders for iPhone 5 screens for the first quarter, for example, have dropped to roughly half of what the company had planned to order, the people said.

The Cupertino, Calif., company also cut orders for components other than screens…

In comparison, the jewel of Waterloo, Research In Motion Limited (USA) (NASDAQ:RIMM) (TSE:RIM), also known as the granddaddy of smartphone tech, seems poised for a return to prominence, as news on the street swirls about the pending performance of its latest addition to the Blackberry family.

As noted in this report from Mashable.com’s Seth Fiegerman: “Hype for the BlackBerry 10 has helped push RIM’s stock above the single-digits in recent months, even as the company reported its first ever decline in subscribers in December. The stock has nearly doubled from just under $8 at the end of October…”

These days, Apple (with a market cap of $470.3 billion) sports a P/E of  11.3 and a return on equity of 50.8, so those investors who are choosing to stay the course with Cupertino do have some reassuring landmarks amid all the downsloping the stock has seen in the last three months. Back in October 2012, Apple was touching well over $600 per share, a far cry from the price points investors have seen in early January 2013.