Buffeted

Why Apple Will Blow Away Forecasts This Quarter

Excellent work. Indeed Apple has a gross margin goal which they have been reaching again and again by feeding strengths like the ipod touch with strong advertisement to make up for shortcomings in mac sales - which was the case last quarter.
This will be a blow out record quarter because of two things: 1. Outstanding iphone sales and 2. Outstanding Mac book sales. The later being the surprise this quarter. Especially to those who didnt pay attention to NPD's numbers released today.
I see Gross Margin Percentage at 36% and guidance at 33% again.

Apple: Great Products = Great Investment?

I like this:


On Jul 09 09:45 AM Julian Ivan-Alexander wrote:

> "There is a lack of visibility about future sustainability. There
> is a lack of visibility about future direction. There is a lack of
> understanding about future cash flow. Can it keep its innovation
> engine going on forever?"
>
> There is a lack of visibility in this article about taking cues from
> a company's past behaviour to predict its future. Apple innovates.
> Its in its DNA. The iPod? Written off as a failure. The Apple Stores?
> Written off as a retail "lights will be out in two years failure."
> The iPhone? Written off as an overpriced toy which would only ever
> enjoy a niche product status. The iTunes store? Oh "it doesn't make
> a profit so what's the point." The App Store? "Oh it'll never be
> a big deal - discount it, its meaningless."
>
> The cost of a share of AAPL right now? $137
>
> The value of innovation? Priceless
>
> The price to Apple of its relentless refusal to please writers and
> analysts by giving them what they think their readers want instead
> of what their customers really want? Boneheaded analysis and a share
> price 50% too low.

Did Apple Steal the Palm Pre’s Thunder?

Your question ignores the real issue behind any meaningful comparison between the two. What Apple has achieved with the iphone and the app store is the same thing they achieved with the ipod and itunes: A platform + contextuality. The superior operating system of iphone, design, speed etc. is all secondary to the perception of the iphone as an exclusive window to the app store and itunes experience. The pre gives you the internet in your pocket experience, but that's it! When companies start REALLY getting that, they will compete, but then there is still the unity of apple os that connects ALL of there divices that will be the next hurdle for competitors.

Apple's Media Tablet Will Cause the Stock to Rocket

The more hype generated about the release of such a tablet, if there is one, the more inclination there will be to buy the rumor and sell the news.

Looks Like We're Still a BlackBerry Nation

I agree: Rim will rule smart phone market share for awhile, especially among the business world because of the keyboard, the emailing and it's austere utilitarian professional image. But what's more interesting is that smartphones will soon be obsolete. The demand for phones with internet and pc capability plus the explosion of net books, i.e low price internet and über portability, indicate that the notion of the mobile phone and computer as separate devices is already anachronistic. Apple, by contextualizing their devices as gaming consuls and application multitools address the the youth segment who are the leaders of trend and consumption and direct the future. They are prepared to embrace a hybrid ibookphone like device, if designed the right size, with enough battery power, a workable keyboard size (even if touch screen) and improved email capability as they have already shown with the iphone. Within 5 years the smart phone and the laptop, as we know them, will be obsolete and the only thing that will still give apple the edge over the competition will be the software since the competition will be fast enough to copy the hardware but not the contextual aspect and the importance of a single unified software.

If Apple Does Correct, It Will Do So Soon

Good call!

Apple: 35,000 'Wicked Smart' People Will Keep Things Humming

"Steve Jobs has left the company in good hands." Well the first part of your sentence is fact and the second is fiction until proven beyond products still in apple's pipeline.

Yours is yet another opinion built on a yielding to silence which sanctions a public relations fiasco unacceptable from any publicly traded corporation.

Whether SJ's will live and return as CEO or he's dead as a door nail is beside the point, which is one of credibility for apple and uncertainty for shareholders.

Also, I personally disagree that Apple can keep up the act without SJ. We wont know for some time though. Cook is a good operations manager, but there's no one else at the company with the all around genious of SJ, and he's hired a lot of great talent to contribute, while staying out of his way when it comes to vision. Still a good company, but a different company.

Will Apple Record Another Halt-Trading Big Beat?

I support the motion of a Huberty award! She might have to share it this year with Toni S. though.

But here's what I wrote over at Bullish Cross today, just so you dont thik I dont appreciate your hard work, Andy:

Athough I believe your unit sales numbers, except for ipods due to touch sales, are too high especially for iphones, they're likeley to be closer than anyone else's. It's thorough and a valueable reference for the future.
You've done good in shedding light on incompetent Apple analysis and hopefully investors will refer back to this article in the future when we have to hear the same bullshit from the same people next quarter.

Time for a New Apple and a New Wall Street

your stealin' my language.

Will Apple Record Another Halt-Trading Big Beat?

You mean Kathryn Huberty was wrong????

How the iPhone and Poor Management Contribute to Apple's Downfall

Another important article, Andy, and thanks but not the reason the stock keeps getting kicked down to 80, instead of 100. Apple's once again the poster boy of bad public relations, this year, regarding their mishadling of the correct percepion that if Jobs retires or dies, Apple Inc. will suffer. They seem surprised that people wanna know anything: "Why is this important" jobs says about his departure until June with no word on a prognosis or guarantee of a return. Wanna know what's going on with your investment? Tough. The problem's not GAAP or non GAAP or anything else which we shall see tomorrow when Apple releases more excellent earnings.

What's Happening at Apple: Who Could Replace Steve Jobs?

I would bet - I have already in aapl shares - that you and all the others clamouring around the issue of jobs and apple trying to focus attention on the rest of the apple team -which is clearly just that - will prove your sensational and rediculous efforts nothing more than the later.
Going back over the interviews and apearances Job's has given in 2008, one can gain a clear picture of two things:
1. Job's loves his job at apple and as long as the board and share holders want him, he has no plans of leaving and his ambitions for apple have not been fullfiled entireley yet - there is more to come.
2. Job's is well beyond five years remission for a non terminal cancer. That's about as close as you get to a cure. I know this since I am also a cancer survivor. He appears to exhibit a common weight loss problem following the 2004 procedure which poses no threat to his daily regime but rather presents a challenge when eating the wrong stuff or too much.
He's been flying all over the world closing iphone deals, is healthy and engaged.
The end of macworld means product announcements will be done on apple's schedule.Steve not doing the last one does not mean there is a shift in leadership, but rather a switch necissary in your perception of the company being other than steve jobs and his androids.
Not very hard to comprehend really is it?

Hedge Fund Tracking: Tiger Global (Chase Coleman), Q3 2008

What I think we are seeing (and its just my 2 cents) and will continue after fund redemptions in January is the slow, inevitbable return of Oct, Nov. liquidation to the markets also in the form of hedgefunds - it has to go somewhere and even with the consensus being middle Q1 of 2009 being another bloody botttom finder, most Hedgefunds, which all operate similarly and usaully buy the same stocks, plan to make some short term profits banking on a pop when Obama takes over in late January, only to reduce percentages following Obamas announcements and fading euphoria when unemployment numbers steal the show. A subsequent slow L shaped recovery rather than a V shape should follow. Hopefully, for hedgefunds, the first half of January wont be hell, because if it is, there wont be many left. (I'm not banking on any of this - just an exercise.)

It's No Big Deal That Apple Is Pulling Out of Macworld

Here is what I predict for Apple Inc. and for aapl in 2009:
The market will remain pretty stable around present levels with low volatility with aapl folowing suit until macworld which might reveal new imacs but even if it doesnt, expectations are so low the potential for surprise rather than disappointment are in aapl's favour. When Apple reports Quarterly earnings in late January and when Obama is expected to sign a package to help homeowners and create new jobs his first day at work, aapl should pop supported by what I believe will be better than expected sales, including macs. By the middle of February, after Obama euphoria fades, the stockmarket will probably fall back to the October lows or create a new bottom which will should hold. Selling long positions on aapl before end of January would be unwise. 2009 will be a dreadful year for America's economy and most Americans financially, but the stock market will offer a once in a life time chance, by the second quarter, to purchase shares in the future of the Greatest capitalist (we still are the later) democracy in the world at big time bargain prices.

Cramer's Stop Trading! Goldman Has Nothing Better to Do (12/15/08)

I'm beginning to like Cramer...a little. Indeed, Goldman Sachs who will report earnings tonite, is going to get clobbered and would prefer to see everyone else go down with them. On the other hand, the combination of a deepening recession and the misconception that the netbook is a value buy (they can do next to nothing and end up being costly when you add up the service provider fees), dont realize what they cannot do and RETURN RATES ARE HIGH, they are taking market share away from the MAC. Even the new macs (not desktops) are not showing up in the top ten on amazon like last year because of the netbooks. I still think, however, that the numbers skew the real picture of mac sales especially since they account for only domestic sales for the period before black friday. Since when have we started downgrading stocks who depend on the ENTIRE holiday season for the bulk of annual sales based on NOVEMBER sales alone? I dont think Apple investors should be too scared off by this flimsy downgrade from the sinking ship of G.S. and would go so far to say that the coming earnings report in January for Apple should be a nice surprise for those holding aapl.