AAPL Opens at $144, Sliding Nearly 10% After Major Revenue Cut and Down 35% Since Early November

[ryanwarsaw]

Give me the stocks that have less downside than Apple, which is already down over 40%? Apple is still printing money every quarter and has $240B in cash. They can survive an economic downturn.

You say they have no services, but that business is growing at 25% and will be a $50B business in the next year. They just did nearly $11B in services this quarter. We can argue about what a "service" is, but the services business at Apple is doing incredibly well.

I am not saying Apple is doomed. i am just thinking right now it isn't at the bottom. They have stopped reporting unit sales. That is fine but they will be treated suspiciously for a few quarters. If they report less revenue people are going to assume that right now they don't have enough services. Any miss of any kind on profits right now is punished severely by the trading robots.

If somebody wants to buy AAPL and forget it for years they will probably be fine.

 

[Ronlap]

I'm not a fan of Tim, but looking at their upper management team, who's better? I can't see anyone; the last thing Apple needs is someone worse in charge.

How about Ron Johnson? He can do for Apple what he did for JCPenney. Oh, wait...

 

[ob81]

I think Steve's inertia is starting to wear off. Tim would have been good until they found someone with vision to take over. Tim is a visionless, platitude machine.

I agree. The vision was clear. Cut corners wherever they can. Mission complete.

 

[lenard]

Who will be Apple's CEO this time next year?

Hopefully not Tim.

Every time a company hits a bump in the road and they threw out the CEO, I think they might run out of CEO's,
name one company that never had a problem?

 

[blacktape242]

DOOOOOOOOOMED!!

 

[yossi]

2019:
Tim is out
SE2 is in
Cut iPhone prices by 20% across the board
Innovate again

 

[Baymowe335]

As long as stock prices continue to go up and up, that's a good strategy. When stock prices go down it works against them. According to a recent ZeroHedge article, Apple has lost $14B and counting in 2018 stock buybacks.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-01-03/apple-shares-tumble-9-lowest-level-july-2017

"Absent that of course, Apple can just burn a few hundred billions more on buybacks - after all the company has already lost $14 billion (and rising) on the stock it repurchased in 2018."

Yeah, the 2018 buyback has been bad because the stock is down 40%. Longer term, those shares are still retired and the overall buyback has been very successful since they started.

 

[triton100]

Do you know how business works? Not every employee at Apple, and certainly not the head of retail, needs to be a tech expert. She's done a great job with Apple Retail, period. Just look at the results.

Yep I do. Apple Retail in case you didn’t know was already hugely successful before her arrival. It’s success is not attributed to her. It’s attributed to the products. And yes it pretty much does help if the ceo has an indelible understanding of the tech.

 

[mtneer]

How come it's not "Apple is the issue here"? Apple does it's manufacturing in China, Apple allowed Chinese iPhone user's iCloud storage to be held on Chinese servers. Apple produced iPhone colours that are popular in China, Apple went for iPhone sizes that are preferred in China. Apple chased the Chinese market and now it may not be working out for them suddenly it's China's fault!

Nike and Phil Knight are also as American as one can get brand-wise. They just reported 26% increase in latest quarter China sales two weeks ago. Shoes are also discretionary and Nike's aren't cheap either. I don't buy this 'blame it all on China' excuse Apple has come up with.

 

[satchmo]

Tim's going to have some explaining to do.

I suspect many employees with stock option plans are not going to be very happy.

 

[neomorpheus]

Lets see Tim, all of your devices are almost 30% more expensive compared to last year models, just because you thought that your blind fanbois will buy no matter what.

Well, you go a nice wakening call.

And to be honest, it should've been worse than this, you greedy bastard.

 

[redmaple]

This basically says it all. So true. Cook is trying, but if it were Jobs, it would have a totally different spin on it:

https://daringfireball.net/2019/01/steve_jobs_and_apples_last_previous_earnings_warning

 

[mlody]

I am an Apple fan and use quite a few products but I want them to fall on their face in order to wake up. It is time for them to reevaluate their products, pricing and software/services.

 

[hinesmj]

Buy the dip!

 

[pmau]

I did not skip 2018 Apple products because of China...
I really hope that we see some product lineup changes and some consideration until June 2019 and WWDC.
The mantra of incremental updates does not cut it.
iOS needs major changes on the iPad, product quality needs to improve, pricing needs to change without just offering „cheaper“ versions.
Macbooks really need some changes.

 

[FrenchRoasted]

Come on, we have the first openly gay CEO, that's important! Go Tim! Diversity and inclusion.

I honestly can't tell if this is sarcasm or not . I just don't get the impression that Tim is obsessed with the products like Steve was. You have to care about the customer experience on a very personal level to make Apple thrive.

 

[hinesmj]

I’d be buying shares here.

Apple didn’t buy back many shares in calendar Q4. Get all the bad news out and start buying back stock hard. They have $71B left in their buyback authorization from May 2018.

The numbers didn’t look that bad in other areas:

19% non iPhone business growth.
25% services growth.
50% wearables growth.
Double digit iPad growth.
Record iPhone revenues in US, Canada, Germany.

This is an iPhone in China story. They will have to fix that, but the world isn’t ending at Apple.

That's what I took away from it as well. They may have to bend on pricing, but not by much. Otherwise, they're just saying, hey, we didn't sell as much as we expected in China. Otherwise, it was a pretty good year. I'm buying this stock on sale.

 

[Darryl.Jenks]

no company can innovate around a trade war.

I agree with your statement, but the trade war isn't to blame for overpriced machines with very little extra utility, terrible keyboards, Siri still suffering a learning disability, bent/new normal iPads, and an almost complete abandonment of the Mac line over the last few years.

 

[nwcs]

Then go ahead and buy. You buy now and you are right you will get the highest rewards. I think it is smarter to buy on some type of real news on the trade war with China. Apple is closer to $100 now than it is to $200. Any further complications because of the trade war will exacerbate this.

There are still a lot of people that are emotionally married to Apple. If the stock drops much more perhaps they capitulate and then it would be a great time to buy. If they are still down after tax time I would consider selling my small amount of shares I have left for the tax break and getting back in at the real price.

I have investments in Apple along with a comprehensive strategy. I just put in some money that will also be allocated to Apple. I don’t think Apple will be on “top” forever but the market is well known to overreact and knee-jerk on anything. And on the internet the echo chamber is such that people only end up hearing their own words repeated ad nauseum as if they are fact.

 

[ksec]

I am not saying Apple is doomed. i am just thinking right now it isn't at the bottom

Remember they will spend their cash to retire stocks, Warrant Buffet are also in the market for much more Apple. I think what happen is Apple will report a number that is slightly better than their newest estimate, but their guidance for Q2 will be very low that will drive the stock further down. ( I am looking at $120 )

 

[ryanwarsaw]

Here comes the reversal for everybody but Apple today. That was some easy trading. Apple news was big enough to artificially drag the entire market down. Talk about the over reactions and the algos

 

[velocityg4]

I don't think the issue with new product development is a result of a lack of spending in R&D. At some point, you can't just throw money at R&D and expect a new iPhone. It just doesn't work that way.

Apple has so much cash, they basically have no choice but to use some for buybacks.

I'm not saying throw it into the iPhone. New or developing categories. The iPhone and iPad did so well. Not because the categories didn't exist. There was just nothing there to interest most people. $71B will let you explore a lot of possibilities. As seen with the iPhone. Only one needs to strike gold to pay everything back with grand interest.

Apple had a lot of flops on the way to the iPhone. Thankfully they didn't just spend more money on the Mac and iPod. Else we might still be using Palm OS, Blackberries and Windows Mobile. With little UI change from the mid 2000's.

 

[DailySlow]

AAPL has opened at $144 today on the stock market, with share prices sliding roughly nine percent after Apple lowered its revenue guidance by up to $9 billion for the first quarter of its 2019 fiscal year.

AAPL is down just over 35 percent since closing at $222.22 on November 1, just prior to its last earnings report.

In a letter to shareholders on Wednesday, Apple disclosed that its revenue will be lower than its original guidance for the first quarter of its 2019 fiscal year, coming in at approximately $84 billion. Apple originally guided for revenue of $89 billion to $93 billion in the quarter on November 1.

The letter said lower than anticipated iPhone revenue, primarily in Greater China, accounts for the entire revenue shortfall.

In an internal memo, Apple CEO Tim Cook said he will host an all-hands meeting with employees today at 9:30 a.m. Pacific Time at Apple's Town Hall auditorium on its Infinite Loop campus to answer questions about the shortfall.

AAPL was already dragged down by Apple's recent announcement that it will no longer disclose iPhone, iPad, and Mac unit sales starting with its next quarterly earnings report. The move sparked fears among some investors and analysts that Apple had something to hide, particularly regarding slowing iPhone sales.

Apple yesterday announced that it will report its earnings for the first quarter of its 2019 fiscal year on January 29.

Article Link: AAPL Opens at $144, Sliding Nearly 10% After Major Revenue Cut and Down 35% Since Early November

"...we could see the return of a lower-priced 'SE' product."


https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech...revenues-mean-lower-prices-iphone/2468370002/

 

[itsmilo]

I am loving all of this and I am sending this from my overpriced Xs Max I didn’t really need

 

[Baymowe335]

Yep I do. Apple Retail in case you didn’t know was already hugely successful before her arrival. It’s success is not attributed to her. It’s attributed to the products. And yes it pretty much does help if the ceo has an indelible understanding of the tech.

In case you didn't know, Apple retail is more successful now than ever.

And no, she doesn't need to be a hardware engineer to run the retail business (by the way, very well). You also have zero knowledge of her tech knowledge, to be frank.
[doublepost=1546534768][/doublepost]

I'm not saying throw it into the iPhone. New or developing categories. The iPhone and iPad did so well. Not because the categories didn't exist. There was just nothing there to interest most people. $71B will let you explore a lot of possibilities. As seen with the iPhone. Only one needs to strike gold to pay everything back with grand interest.

Apple had a lot of flops on the way to the iPhone. Thankfully they didn't just spend more money on the Mac and iPod. Else we might still be using Palm OS, Blackberries and Windows Mobile. With little UI change from the mid 2000's.

Apple doesn't have a cash problem. They are spending plenty on R&D. If anything, they have too much cash. There is such a thing as not having a great place to put cash because there aren't always great opportunities.

You might not like their products or strategy, but the innovation is there if you want to see it. The mobile silicon innovation is frankly incredible and the wearables have come a long way. Even the iPhone is more innovative than ever. You see the market still trying to catch up to FaceID, no chin, depth of field cameras systems, and image processing.

 

[Jssmith83]

The bubble had to burst at some point.

I know that Tim is not Steve, but I think Tim still wants to do a good job. Not having Steve run things doesn't mean there's not something new coming along. Apple can't blow everyone's mind every time they hold an event.

I think most the products they released this year are great products but maybe not as exciting as things used to be. That happens when a category matures. It's harder to really bring in mind-blowing products.

Things will rebound eventually, maybe not to the highs they were before the dip, but they'll come back once the market does.

Just my 2-cents.