“It turns out Apple Computer was saving the bad news for later. A week after announcing that it posted better-than-expected sales in its holiday period, the company forecast results for its current quarter that were much lower than analysts’ forecasts. The market’s immediate take was a negative one: in recent after-hours trading, Apple’s shares were off $5.42, or 6.6%, to $77.07,” Troy Wolverton reports for TheStreet.com.
“In its quarter ended Dec. 31, Apple earned $565 million, or 65 cents a share, on $5.75 billion in sales. That was up from the year-ago period, in which the company earned $295 million, or 35 cents a share, on sales of $3.49 billion,” Wolverton reports. “Excluding options costs, the iPod maker would have earned $595 million, or 68 cents a share. But while the just-completed quarter was a good one for Apple, the company offered disappointing results for its current period. The company expects to earn 38 cents a share — or 42 cents a share excluding options costs — on sales of $4.3 billion. Wall Street had previously predicted that the company would earn 48 cents a share before costs in the current quarter, on $4.62 billion in sales. In the same period last year, Apple posted a profit of 34 cents a share — also not including stock options costs — on $3.24 billion in sales.”
Full article here.
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