“Apple (AAPL) ended November trading at $585.28 per share. At the closing price on November 30th, the shares traded at 13.28 times trailing 12-month earnings and off 17% from the all-time high of $705.07 set on September 21, 2012,” Posts At Eventide writes for Seeking Alpha. “In the ten weeks since the all-time high, analysts have reduced their expectations for the company’s December quarter and the fiscal year ending in late September. The changes in analyst expectations have contributed to the recent downward pressure on the share price.”
“Apple will beat the Street’s revenue and earnings consensus estimates for the December quarter and the Street’s consensus estimates for the current fiscal year,” Posts At Eventide writes. “In today’s article I will explore the factors that will deliver an earnings surprise when Apple’s quarterly results are released in late January.”
Posts At Eventide writes, “I expect the share price to retrace to the all-time high by the first trading day of February 2013 through a gradual recovery of lost ground over the next sixty days. Management’s eps guidance and the Street’s consensus eps estimate are not supported by the company’s earnings to revenue ratios measured over the most recent eight fiscal quarters.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
Can they please STFU.
I think iPhone 5 sales will surprise people. Since Apple doesn’t count a sale until the consumer has it in hand, all of those preorders and back logged orders during last quarter..and recent sales in China..will blow them away.
Article says……. Anal…yst are idiots. Apple doing well.
Same as always.
En
I’m getting tired of calling them ANALysts. How about we use the term:
Rectalists
This quarter will obviously be big. No doubt with the new iPhone, iPad and iPadMini being available in volume.
The question is how much spin will Wall Street put on the numbers. If they start pumping up the numbers they could create a scenario where expectations are so high that Apple could not possibly met them.
On the other hand, the street could start giving positive vibes to pump the stock up into new territory.
At the beginning of 2012 aapl started to take a long hike up from hanging at 300-400 for all of 2011. There could be another hike up again or a year of doldrums.
It really depends on where the brokers want the stock to be so they can maximize profit.
Key stats will be iPhone sales, iPad sales, average sales prices and gross margin.
My own spreadsheets tend to say that EPS will be around 14.30. I tend to disbelieve EPS estimates over $ 15.30 — for now.
Tetra, As a direct result of Robert’s comparisons of historical EPS and Revenue growth rates, I have increased my EPS estimate to $17.05, and believe there is upside to that number.
Gregg
I like those projections. Mine are much lower at $15.81. Hope you are doing well.
Cook saying “yes” to the NBC interview tells me Apple is well on its way to a blow-out quarter.
Apple needs to get some decent public relations control in order. The company is being constantly bombarded with crap stories of all sorts. You’d be surprised how many negative news articles are found for Apple on a daily basis. For a company selling so many products and enormous wealth, it’s amazing how many things are being said about Apple doing things badly. I’ve heard some rumors about hedge fund managers hiring people to create bad press for Apple, but maybe that’s just some silly conspiracy theory.
Just as politicians do, maybe Apple should occasionally have a press conference to clear up some of the ridiculous nonsense that is supposedly always spooking investors. Or at least address some of the fears of long-term shareholders that things are definitely going according to plan.
Could someone please tell me how Apple is given a much lower P/E than Microsoft even though the ZunePad is being considered a flop, yet Apple is selling iPads by the millions. Why is it that Apple cannot get Wall Street to have any faith in the company? So far in 2012, Apple is now at the same share price level it was in March/April of this year despite pulling in much more revenue. Don’t tell me it’s common that the more revenue and profits a company makes actually drives the share price and P/E lower. That makes no sense at all. That would seem to indicate outright fraud in the stock market.
There’s no way Google’s share price should be nearly $100 higher than Apple’s if you compare the fundamentals of the two companies. There’s far too many companies getting free passes.
Investors look for growth… That’s when the are willing to pay high PE ratios. Apples problem is that their numbers are so large already, investors don’t see how they double or triple in value from here. Google and Microsoft are in different boats on this point (BTW… Share prices mean little to nothing when comparing 1 company to another). Investors can see Google growing as big as Apple before they can see Apple doubling or tripling in size. Not going to happen, but people wonder how much more can Apple grow.
Another worry is how long can they sustain their profit margins.
But I agree with the gist of your comment.
Amazon’s PE is what I think is almost criminal stupidity on the behalf of fund managers who own this stock.
“outright fraud in the stock market”
…the room becomes dense with shocked gasps as the unthinkable is uttered…faces, suddenly colourless, recoil at the enormity of the words…a dropped cocktail glass shatters on the polished Italian marble…soles and heels stumble toward egress, toward a place to hide from the glare of revelation…God help us: the sanctity and purity of Market, reduced to shibboleth and shabbiness? Unimaginable! — Incontinence spots the carpets — bodies thud below the balustrade — a distant siren rises.
Thanks for the laugh! Brilliant.
Not only getting free passes but stealing the show.
Of course not… “the more revenue and profits a company makes actually drives the share price and P/E lower”
I believe it is more something like this… “the more revenue OR profits a company makes the more difficult it is for the company to keep making it or doubling, tripling it”.
I still believe there’s room for Apple’s growth but, still it is difficult to believe that growth can be double or even triple; of course I want to see that. And I would be surprised if it happens; the one factor I see can contribute to make it happen is the China mobile deal, if and when one is done. In the mean time we are bound to the ups and downs that regular growth and the “shopping seasons” provide (the US and overseas), coupled with the typicall product “competition” along the way (which only blocks or delays or distracts people from getting the best, so far, products in the market).
[I believe it is more something like this… “the more revenue OR profits a company makes the more difficult it is for the company to keep making it or doubling, tripling it”.]
Only in a market that is saturated, and if the firm in question does not enter, or create, new markets. 60+% of Apple’s revenue comes from products they didn’t have 5 years ago.
Yes, but what you just said is part of that difficulty.
An unsaturated market or creating new markets does not make doubling or tripling growth any easier.
Please note I said it is [very] difficult to do, not I can’t be done.
Regarding the 60+%…. Looking back makes most everyone smart, and everything look easy. Looking into the future?? That’s where expectations come in.
Not only getting free passes but stealing the show.
Of course not… “the more revenue and profits a company makes actually drives the share price and P/E lower”
I believe it is more something like this… “the more revenue OR profits a company makes the more difficult it is for the company to keep making it or doubling, tripling it”.
I still believe there’s room for Apple’s growth but, still it is difficult to believe that growth can be double or even triple; of course I want to see that. And I would be surprised if it happens; the one factor I see can contribute to make it happen is the China mobile deal, if and when one is done. In the mean time we are bound to the ups and downs that regular growth and the “shopping seasons” provide (the US and overseas), coupled with the typicall product “competition” along the way (which only blocks or delays or distracts people from getting the best, so far, products in the market).
Very good. Excellent points.
‘The Street’, having been corrupted by the usual manipulative parasites who invented our ongoing worldwide economic depression, has no respect from me. F*ck ‘The Street’.
Do your research folks and figure out what is the most valuable company in the world that just happens to have the most undervalued stock price in the world. *DING* What does that tell you? 💡
Apple sales this quarter will be very big. Bigger than ever. The stock will not go as high as the earnings would warrant because in February it will be more clearly understood the world economy is in a depression. Layoff announcements, which increased after the election, are now accelerating. More taxes and huge government spending increases (destruction of capital) will put an anchor on the economy. Stock prices – even of great companies like Apple – will be hurt significantly. In a depression, there is less money to spend on luxuries.