“Cowen & Co.’s Matthew Hoffman this morning reiterates an Outperform rating on shares of Apple (AAPL), while warning that ‘expectations are building to levels that leave little chance for a substantial revenue upside surprise when it prints fiscal Q1 results on January 24th,'” Tiernan Ray reports for Barron’s.
Ray reports, “Hoffman’s main concern is that others are being less realistic, in his view: ‘Some of our competitors are extrapolating those strong activations into global C4Q11 iPhone unit sales in the mid-to-upper-30 million range. We are raising our C4Q11/F1Q12 forecast to 30.5MM units from 26.5MM, but our checks do not support a figure in the mid-30s. Second-hand iPhone activations (from upgraders) and wider channel weakness may explain some of the delta.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Just over two weeks to go!
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“warning that ‘expectations are building to levels that leave little chance for a substantial revenue upside surprise”
So, he admits that upside suprise is the goal.
Is that the reason for the selloff last hour?
I would hardly call that a sell-off. AAPL fluctuates up and down on a daily basis sometimes up to $7 or 8$ swings…. Just normal day trading activity. This is an opinion by one advisor. Not likely to have the weight to push the stock a whole lot unless it was some earth shattering news.
Last knockdown efforts at work
It does appear that 426 -427 is the price where Apple hits a wall and profit taking begins.
Wow!
An analyst that officially recognizes the patern in which expectations are driven so high that when great results are finally announced, they are disappointing.
I applaud this guy, and detest the irrational prognosticators making unrealisticly high predictions in order to manipulate stock prices.
You have to wonder how the analysts are coming up with these numbers. You know they’re not all looking at PERCH or TROUT, or even data available through BUTR. More likely the analysts are looking at each other in a kind of escalating echo chamber, jockeying up the numbers with each convulsive tick.
Analysts forgot about the GAAP accounting rules change and that AAPL is going to realize the bulk of that withheld GAAP income to its bottom line, as this is the last quarter within the year they had to allocate that income in any proportion they wished.
Last quarter Apple beat it’s guidance but analyst had set higher expectations. Even though Apple had its best quarter ever because the numbers were below analyst expectations the stock tanked. I fear we are seeing the same setup and will get the same reaction again.
anyone know if its possible for large caps to have big rallies and high p/E s ? is this what apple is left with . weak price movements ?
I wouldn’t think it would be possible for Apple to have a huge price boost on earnings. You’d have to have an awful lot of investors moving big money for that to happen. I believe Apple investors have already emptied their loads and unfortunately have nothing more left to give.
ust a phone” comment is not news.
Bloody Wall Street, who, for some reason, seem to like to predict higher future Apple earnings in an upcoming quarter, than even Apple’s own outlook. Then, when Apple releases actual results better than Apple’s own outlook, but under Wall Streets forecast, it’s bad news and down goes the stock price. What a joke. Then Wall Street says, “Apple missed the Street!” More like, the Street missed Apple! How the hell can Apple miss the Street? The Street’s expectations are way too high, given the information already given my Apple’s own outlook.