“Of all the earnings reports released this season, who’d have ever thought it would be Apple that could take down the stock market,” Lee Brodie reports for CNBC. “But after the bell, Apple released quarterly results that left pros with their jaws agape. ‘This is a real negative. The Street is shocked by this,’ said trader Tim Seymour, founder of EmergingMoney.com, on CNBC’s Fast Money. Apple missed earnings estimates, revenue estimates and iPhone sales estimates.”

Brodie reports, “For the quarter ended June 30, Apple reported a profit of $8.82 billion, or $9.32 a share. After revisions lower, analysts had most recently predicted a per-share profit of $10.37 a share. Also, Apple sold 26 million iPhone units — the Street was looking for 29 million. This makes problems for the stock market bulls,’ said Dennis Gartman, author of The Gartman Letter. ‘It makes problems for anyone that’s long.’ In part that’s because Apple is the largest company by market cap. And any decline in Apple stock tends to be amplified. But more important, results will also kill sentiment.”

“Apple’s results suggest that recent economic data is not to be ignored; that the global economy is getting a lot worse,” Brodie reports. “Money managers will say, ‘If Apple is not immune (to the malaise) then I’m out of the market. I don’t need to buy anything,’ added trader Tim Seymour.”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: We follow Apple very closely and we are unmoved by Apple’s Q312 results. Mac units are +2% YOY, iPhone units are +28% YOY, and iPad units are +84% YOY. Apple, at least, and especially in this economy, is doing just fine.

This too shall pass.

Related article:
Apple misses estimates with $9.32 EPS on $35.0 billion revenue – July 24, 2012