“On Tuesday (May 2), Apple, Inc. announced its fiscal second quarter earnings, and the market reacted negatively. In spite of increased earnings per share ($2.10) that beat, many writers focused on the negatives,” J. M. Manness writes for Seeking Alpha. “he share price was down for several days, but on Friday returned to growth, rejecting this way of thinking, and with good cause.”
“I will not argue that this is a great quarter. It wasn’t. But neither was it a bad one,” Manness writes. “It was good quarter in which the positives modestly outweighed the negatives.”
“One important thing to note is that Apple actually sold more iPhones than it did a year ago. This is IF by ‘sell’ you mean sell to the customer. This is different from Apple’s reported figures,” Manness writes. “Reported sales is only a measure of units into the channel. If there is a significant change in the number of units in channel inventory, then reported sales will not match real sales. And this precisely was the case. As noted in the earnings call, this year drawdown was 1.2 million units vs. 450,000 last year. So adding the two figures back in and we see… narrow growth over last year, which is better than a narrow loss.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Appel sold more iPhones to customers this year versus last even amidst the beginning of The Mother of all iPhone Pauses.
We’re seeing what we believe to be a pause in purchases of iPhones which we believe are due to the earlier and much more frequent reports about future iPhones. That part is clearly going on and what’s going on behind the data. – Apple CEO Tim Cook, May 2, 2017
SEE ALSO:
Apple’s unpleasant iPhone surprise – May 6, 2017
Apple’s iPhone miss hits suppliers – May 3, 2017
If they only listened…..that was clear in the conference call.
Yellow press BS: Selling the sizzle, not the steak. Or even trying to understand the steak.
Journalists are trained to seek put the unusual, the more unusual the better. If there isn’t anything that stands out as unusual the journalists isn’t trying hard enough.
“Dog bites man” is not unusual, “Man bites dog” is.
“Apple beats Street consensus” is not unusual. “Apple misses” is.
In their hunt for the unusual journalists have taken to focusing on minutiae vs the big picture, after all big picture analysis requires intelligence and effort, neither of which traits are strong attributes among today’s blogosphere and/or financial media, exceptions being Neil Cybert, Horace Dediu, Alex Cho, John Gruber and Danial Eran Dilger. This group doesn’t write everyday, but when they do its extremely insightful and prescient.
Sadly, few seek out their analysis of Apple/AAPL. Fewer still comprehend what they are saying. I hope this latter group isn’t investing in AAPL. I hate to see people lose money on weak and incomplete analysis.
Apple fanatics have noted for decades that technology comprehension and professional management of statistics is NOT a characteristic of technology analysts, despite the inference of their job description.
IOW: Journalism and technical analysis isn’t science. It damned well can be and should be. But it’s not. A similar example: The field of computer security. There, it’s often competitive to the point of juvenile, as opposed to scientific.
What’s causing the Apple upwards stock movement today? The media story there will be no delay in iPhone 8 release? Investors suddenly realizing how stupid they were about Apple stock all these years? Cats and dogs living together?
3 things I have read: (1) Warren Buffet has apparently increased his previous holdings in Apple, (2) Warren Buffett thinks Apple is a very good investment (…this might be a slight understatement about anything Warren Buffet buys) and (3) Drexel put a $202 value on Apple’s shares.
To all those who are long Apple: power to ya !
Today’s movement is rtpocal post earnings. WS went to work analyzing Apple’s 10Q filings Wednesday morning and have determined to their satisfaction Apple’s future prospects and are today acting on their understanding.
About a week after January earnings I bought May $135/$140 Call Spreads at ab average price of $1.55 *total investment including fees = $10,053). Thursday I closed out that position 5¢ below maximum value and realized $22,526 PROFIT. That’s what genuine research/analysis will do for you.
Buffet hype.
from 30k ft investment community is accepting that iPhone is everyone’s basic necessity integral of modern like and luxury brand well worth its price, no longer hear peak iPhone as though with fear of iPhones suddenly no longer saleable or new tech replacing its functionality.
Looks like peak iPhone to me: Apple sold less iPhones in the first six months of this year and the first six months of last year compared to the first six months of 2015.
The following is anecdotal, but I rarely see people brandishing their iPhones online anymore. I’ve also noticed less and less models flashing iPhones in their Instagram photos.
And the hard evidence says people are not upgrading as often as they did a few years ago. This means fiscal 2015 was peak iPhone, unless the next iPhone has magical innovation, which is doubtful given the less than spectacular track record with Apple products over the last few years.
One final note: In the Fall of 2016 I was an Apple bull after analysing the iPhone 7/7 Plus usage numbers, and at that time I pooh-poohed any talk of peak iPhone, but after the December quarter’s iPhone number came in my tune began to change my tune. The number was much less than what I had been anticipating. Even so, I gave Apple the benefit of the doubt and thought maybe they shifted a lot of those December quarter sales into this past March quarter. Then the March quarter iPhone sales number were released and they were basically the same as last year, which wasn’t good because last March 2016 quarter iPhone numbers were WAY below the March 2015 numbers.
Maybe that guy (forgot his name… some Facebook investor I think) was right and 2015 was peak iPhone. But, for reasons that I haven’t seen yet, many analysts think the next iPhone is going to be the God phone and sell gazillions.
These analysts and AAPL are in an extreme euphoria stage right now. But that’s AAPL: the stock gets extremely bearish for little reason, and extremely bullish for little reason.
Stupid article