Apple’s scary Form 10-K

Apple on Wednesday filed its Form 10-K for fiscal year 2008, as required by the SEC.

And as is customary, the report includes a long section on “Risk Factors,” in which it rattles off everything that could possibly go wrong with the company.

These things always make for unsettling reading, but this year’s list of risks is longer than last years’s and, given the economic climate, seems even scarier. Among the topics:

The effects of a global financial meltdown
New lawsuits stemming from the Apple stock option investigation
Price cutting, piracy and Mac OS clones
Badly managed product transitions in a particularly volatile environment
Rapid product obsolescence and unexpected inventory write-downs
Shortages of NAND flash memory, DRAM and LCDs, and associated price increases
Disruptions in foreign contracts for manufacturing and logistics
Deal-breaking demands by digital film and music suppliers
Getting caught infringing on other people’s patents
Third-party software developers deciding to abandon ship
The discovery of serious bugs and manufacturing defects in Apple products
Late-in-the-quarter events that disrupt the usual seasonal fluctuations in sales and revenue
Failure of overseas mobile phone carriers to properly support the iPhone
Changing laws and regulations in overseas mobile phone markets
System failures, network disruptions, breaches in data security
Extreme fluctuations in the company’s stock price
Political events, war, terrorism, natural disasters and public health emergencies
Difficulty attracting and retaining key personnel given the new option regulations
Ongoing lawsuits decided against Apple
Fluctuating foreign currency rates and changes in international tax laws, labor conditions etc.
Declining sales in stores that have long leases and are particularly expensive to maintain
Acquisitions and business strategies that go sour
Distributors, resellers, wholesalers and catalog companies getting squeezed or going bankrupt
Material losses in the company’s $24.5 billion investment portfolio
The effect of worsening economic conditions on unsecured non-trade receivables
New laws and regulations related to health, safety and environmental protection
Changes in the company’s tax rates
Insurance problems. “For certain risks, the Company does not maintain insurance coverage because of cost and/or availability”