I'll bet they had a fantastic quarter and crushed the estimates, as usual. But then they'll issue their usual super low guidance and people will freak out and sell, as usual.
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Apple to Release Q1 2009 Financial Results on January 21st
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I heard that Steve had put all of Apple's reserves in a hedge fund run by some guy named Madoff. Sure hope it's weathering the current financial storm.
I hope they do too. IF the economy turns around, I bet they will be one of the first ones to start gaining the highest stock % every day.
Last quarter AAPL was hammered the day after they released earnings for offering such low guidance for this quarter. Several analysts openly laughed at AAPL's guidance as absurd. Looks like the people managing AAPL's finances had a better handle on the economy's collapse than the Wall Streeters who somehow didn't see this massive collapse in the economy coming.
Actually, he's right on with his numbers and predictions.
Since you seem to know so much, why don't you share your opinion with us?
I believe Apple also said in their conference call that their "crystal ball is cloudy" for Q1. We'll know how well they forecasted the economic slowdown if we get an indication of their inventory levels. I think one of the reasons we might be seeing slower hardware updates than we want is due to some backlogs of unsold inventory. If Apple gear starts showing up at Costco at substantial discounts, we'll know they missed the mark by a lot. So far (AFAIK) that hasn't happened.
They will be far from going negative on income. It will likely be ticked down from the trend of the last few years... even then it should hold its own fairly well relative to the year ago quarter (nice to have the iPhone deferred revenue to buffer things).
But its apple....They are suppose to earn trillons of dollars while everyone else goes out of business.....if they dont...then they are a complete failure...and steve jobs was suppose to solve world hunger and war...if he doesn't...its all one big failure....
worst part of high expectations is disappointment.
and for the few posters arguing against my previous claim....apple at $80 bucks is bascially priced as a Dell or HP. Taking out the $30/share in cash...gives you $50/share...to which free cash flow is about $8-$9/share and earnings are about $5/share....its absurd......so clearly some investors are betting...apple's products wont sell..wont work...explode...etc....how else can you justify such a low stock price?
True, but we've been there before. At one point only a few years ago, AAPL's market cap was very close to its cash assets. The markets were pricing all of Apple's other assets as essentially worthless, and their business as a net liability. Good luck trying to find logic in the markets.
You can justify it by saying that something is only worth what someone else is willing to pay for it. If you had a $20 bill, but no one would give you more than $10 for it, it would only be worth $10...doesn't matter what it says on it. Not many people want to touch AAPL right now, and the stock price reflects properly reflects that. It doesn't mean they're making good decisions though.
As IJ Reilly points out, it wasn't so long ago that AAPL was essentially trading at the level of its cash on hand.
Well you kind of have a point in there somewhere, but your explanation is hilarious. Whatever $20 is worth, it's worth twice $10. Any time you want to trade $20s for $10s I'm here for you.
My friend works at an apple store and their sales weren't as good as last christmas 07/08. Sad that Apple never has sales after xmas, and obscenely charges $$$ for ANY software/upgrades/instore maintenance. Guess that's the 'image' Apple portrays (we're too good for sales)
Too bad a cheaper/new Mini and iMac isn't out it might have helped this and next quarter!
Not true. If everybody on Earth only has $10, nobody can pay you $20 for yours, so what's it worth? Not twice $10.
A fundamental aspect of an open market is that something is only worth what another person will pay for it. It doesn't matter what someone else says it's worth, until a person actually offers to buy it from you for some price, the item's value has not been established. And extreme example for illustrative purposes would be cash as I described. It's not a very realistic situation at this extreme, but if no one would pay you more than $10 for a $20 bill, that $20 bill is suddenly worth only $10.
Have you ever really needed to break a $5 bill but the only person around only has four $1 bills, but you trade with him anyway? At that moment, your $5 bill is worth $4 to you. (Or his $4 is worth $5 to you if you look at it from the other side.)
And of course I wouldn't be willing to agree to that deal because the conditions are not the same as I proposed. There are plenty of other places I could go to get $20 for my $20 bill, so I'd be dumb to trade with you. But what if I had no other option?
But we digress...I'm not sure whether we're still tangentially related to the topic at hand but I think it's there somewhere.
The $20 bill analogy is probably confusing to some, but it's certainly true that the markets exist for the sole purpose of pricing stocks. I have to laugh when someone says with great confidence that this-or-that stock is "over valued" or "under valued." The fact is, it's alway "correctly" valued -- which is why most serious market analysts rarely speak in these terms.
Now it's "everybody on Earth only has $10": I'd say you're changing the the conditions. In any case, I'm still smiling when I think of the contrived example.
Anyway, getting back to AAPL, what I think you're referring is the strong form of the efficient market hypothesis, but I'm getting mixed messages. First it's "You can justify it by saying that something is only worth what someone else is willing to pay for it", (strong form of the EMH perhaps) the share price is the true worth. Then we have "It doesn't mean they're making good decisions though": suggesting the share price may not reflect the true worth, the fundamentals may be more important and the true value will come out in the long run (through earnings, Steve not dying, Apple surviving if he does, ...). Maybe your the key words in your opinion are "You can justify it by saying" so that you don't argree with the first statement, but then we have the $10 example. I'll just hold on until someone thinks it's a good idea to trade my $20 for $10 plus some food.
"The fact is"
. Perhaps the strong form efficiency hypothesis is correct, but it is certainly an opinion, not a fact. If the share price is "always correctly valued" we would not need any "market analysts", "serious" or otherwise. The whole point is to try to find which stocks to buy and sell, whether it be due to technical or fundamental considerations. What do you think analysts are saying when they say buy or sell or hold?