“A disappointing quarterly report from one of Apple Inc.’s major suppliers is pushing Apple shares to fresh lows,” Steven Russolillo reports for The Wall Street Journal.
“Chip maker Cirrus Logic last night offered bleak first-quarter revenue guidance, attributing the pitfall to ‘a decreased forecast for a high volume product as the customer migrates to one of Cirrus Logic’s newer components,'” Russolillo reports. “Cirrus’s audio chips are used in Apple’s iPads and iPhones.”
Russolillo reports, “Apple shares fell as much as 5.3% to $403.67, the lowest level since January 2012. Wednesday’s marks its second largest single-day drop since January 24, when shares fell 12% after Apple reported disappointing quarterly results.”
MacDailyNews Take: Yeah, Apple’s ‘disappointing’ quarter was only the most profitable quarter for a tech company in history.
Russolillo reports, “One way the company could juice the stock price is by making a long-awaited cash announcement. As MoneyBeat pointed out yesterday, Apple disclosed more than two months ago that its management and executive teams were in active discussions about returning more cash to shareholders. One analyst predicted such an announcement may not come until weeks after Apple reports quarterly results on April 23. Perhaps a deeper slide in the stock price could prompt more immediate action on such a cash announcement.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Cirrus Logic attributed the guidance to “a decreased forecast for a high volume product as the customer migrates to one of Cirrus Logic’s newer components.” Ooh, Apple is doomed. Doomed, we tell you!
I know there has been lots of rumors about order cuts and so forth and so let me just take a moment to make a comment on these. I don’t want to comment on any particular rumor because I would spend my life doing that but I would suggest it’s good to question the accuracy of any kind of rumor about build plans and also stress that even if a particular data point were factual it would be impossible to accurately interpret the data point as to what it meant for our overall business because the supply chain is very complex and we obviously have multiple sources for things, yields might vary, supply performance can vary. The beginning inventory positions can vary, I mean there is just an inordinate long list of things that would make any single data point not a great proxy for what’s going on. – Apple CEO Tim Cook, Q113 conference call with analysts, January 23, 2013
Overheard at a meeting between analysts and hedge fund managers back in September 2012:
“If we repeat the lies often enough, people will believe them. Even the financial media of record will begin to parrot it. At that point, they’ll foment for us. Once we knock the stock on its ass, it’ll be easier to force them to hand over billions from their obscene cash hoard.” (clinking of Martini glasses amid guffaws)
Oh, wait, we just thought we heard that. Never mind.
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