“Apple recently announced that it plans to report its financial results for the fourth quarter of its fiscal year 2017 on Nov. 2,” Ashraf Eassa writes for The Motley Fool. “This, as some have pointed out, is late compared to when Apple has reported fourth-quarter results in previous fiscal years. During fiscal year 2016, Apple reported its fourth-quarter results on Oct. 25. In the year prior to that, it reported fourth-quarter results on Oct. 27. And the year before that, the company reported its results on Oct. 20.”
“A report on Nov. 2 isn’t much later than it was, say, last year — it’s just six days’, or less than a week’s, difference,” Eassa writes. “But I do think that the slightly later-than-usual fourth-quarter earnings announcement is deliberate. ”
“For the company to provide investors with a useful financial forecast for the first quarter of fiscal-year 2018, it really needs to have some insight into the customer interest in iPhone X, the degree to which iPhone X shipments will cannibalize iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus shipments, and more,” Eassa writes. “By putting off the fourth-quarter report — and, by extension, the publication of a financial forecast for the following quarter — to Nov. 2, Apple should have a reasonable amount of data with which to furnish a forecast.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As is usual with earnings, for Wall Street, at least, it’s all about the guidance.
SEE ALSO:
Apple to release Q417 earnings, webcast live conference call on November 2nd – October 3, 2017
What these WSJ should did is focus on the losses Microshit enjoyed from their Surface tablets, now that is a juicy negative number 🙂
Microsoft took relatively heavy losses from their Nokia venture and the share price rose as though nothing happened at all. Any Surface device losses will be completely ignored by Wall Street and the stock will continue to rise.
Unlike Apple, Microsoft can take losses without any ill effects to company value. Apple is the only major tech stock stumbling around like a drunken sailor as even unconfirmed future losses can tank Apple stock. I can assure you Microsoft’s juicy negative losses for Surface devices won’t hurt the stock, at all. Apple, unfortunately, got stuck with all the cowardly investors who dump their stock on any negative Apple rumor. Tim Cook never offers any assurance to Apple shareholders.
The ones who dump their AAPL on negative Apple rumours are not investors, but speculators. They deserve to get their fingers burnt if they follow the herd.
Exactly, on top of that the Microshit devices are not only more expensive then the Apple devices, but the Microshit have huge reliability problems and people returning them at alarming numbers for a full refund
The other problem with MicroFAIL is they have repeatedly demonstrated an easy abandonment of their short-lived hardware products which does not make for user confidence or feelings of security in an ecosystem or device.
On top of that a general cluelessness in general doesn’t help. Those that invest in any inevitable MicroDoomed device get what deserve.
This comment really is not fair.. Two different companies.. Microsoft derives little from the Surface unlike Apple who is predominantly an iPhone company with services and some other products (AW, Macs,etc). Microsoft is weighing heavily on it’s cloud and growth in that market Apple is not.
it’s easier for AMZN: they promise not to earn money, so they can always keep their promise.
Or you know, fiscal year 2016 ended on September 24 and fiscal year 2017 ended on September 30. Six days difference, so nothing has changed. How did this make it into an article at the Motley Fool with no one checking that?
Get real. You know there’s no place for logic, common sense or verifiable facts when analysts write articles about Apple.
Apple needs more time to “fix” the numbers. Cough, Enron, cough,