What to make of those pesky forward-looking statements in today's earnings report
Source: Piper Jaffray, Company reports
It used to be that traders rewarded or punished Apple's (AAPL) shares right after its earnings releases based not on the sales it reported for the past quarter, but on what the company said about the quarter to come. Apple tends to "guide conservatively," in the jargon of the trade, which Wall Street often interpreted as a disappointment.
But that pattern has been broken in recent quarters. In July, the stock popped in after-hours trading despite earnings guidance that was a whopping 16% below the Street's expectations. And in October, the stock tanked despite guidance that was 4% above consensus.
It turned out that Apple in July was sending a signal about the September quarter -- the one that didn't include the expected release of a new iPhone -- that Wall Street chose to ignore. For the December quarter, Apple told investors to expect earnings of $9.30 a share on sales of $37 billion, which for Apple was unusually optimistic. (Wall Street, of course, is expecting Apple to handily beat both its guidance and the Street's published consensus for Q1 2012 -- earnings of $10.08 on sales of $38.85 billion.)
What kind of signal will Apple send today for the March quarter? On average, according to Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster, Apple guides 10% below the Street's consensus on earnings and 2% below on revenue. Assuming that pattern holds, Apple's guidance this afternoon should look something like this:
Any deviation from that pattern will be closely watched.
Below the fold: Munster's spreadsheets recording five and half years of revenue and earnings guidance.
The 18% gap between the Street's estimates and the independents' suggests that it can
Click to enlarge. Data: Company reports, Apple 2.0
Last fall, a Wall Street analyst who shall remain nameless suggested in a note to clients that the days of the big Apple (AAPL) earnings surprises may be over.
He was referring to the string of quarterly reports in which the company beat the Street's estimates by measures so wide MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jan 22, 2012 2:38 PM ET
With Q1 earnings due next week, the Street and the bloggers are now $4.5 billion apart
Click to enlarge. Data: Company reports, Apple 2.0. Chart style: Adam Bushman
Perhaps professional analysts are just more comfortable underestimating Apple (AAPL). Perhaps they're still smarting from last quarter, when their numbers (for once) came in too high. Perhaps they're suspicious of reports that suggest that Mac and iPhone and iPad sales have never been so MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jan 16, 2012 8:25 AM ET
Mark your calendars for what's expected to be a monster quarter
Apple Inc.
Apple (AAPL) investor relations has scheduled a conference call with analysts on Tuesday, Jan. 24 at 5 p.m. ET (2 p.m. PT) to discuss its first fiscal quarter results.
Given last summer's pent-up demand for the new iPhone that was finally released in October, this should be a big one.
The Street's consensus, as reported Tuesday by Thomson Reuters, is MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jan 4, 2012 8:01 AM ET
If you ask about sales in the quarter that just ended, you get two very different answers
Click to enlarge. Data: Apple 2.0, Thomson Reuters. Chart style: Adam Bushman
How did Apple (AAPL) do in the quarter that ended Saturday?
That depends whom you ask.
The consensus among nearly four dozen professional analysts, according to Thomson Reuters, is that Apple will report record earnings of $9.83 on record sales of $38.17 billion, up MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jan 2, 2012 8:18 AM ET
We're averaging the Q4 estimates of the six analysts with the best track records
Data: Company reports, PED. Chart: Adam Bushman
The chart at right, which compares Apple's (AAPL) reported earnings for the past six quarters with estimates made in advance of those reports, shows that some analysts are better at predicting the company's results than others.
Specifically, a group of independent analysts we've been calling -- for lack of a better MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Oct 17, 2011 7:11 AM ET
On this one, most analysts agree: Summer '11 was even bigger than Christmas '10
The Mac was one of the few products that failed to live up to expectations in the June quarter (Apple's fiscal Q3). Analysts were looking for sales of 4.2 million. What Apple (AAPL) delivered was 3.95 million.
That's not likely to happen again on Tuesday, when Apple reports its earnings for fiscal Q4.
Everybody seems to agree that MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Oct 16, 2011 10:23 AM ET
With Q4 earnings due next week, the pros and the bloggers are $3.9 billion apart
Click to enlarge. Data: Company reports, Apple 2.0. Chart: Adam Bushman
It has become, for the Street, an embarrassing quarterly tradition.
The Apple (AAPL) independent analysts -- a growing community of bloggers, private investors and assorted amateurs -- file estimates that look, by Wall Street's standards, outrageously optimistic.
But as the day of reckoning approaches -- in this MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Oct 11, 2011 2:13 PM ET
For as long as we have been tracking them, the bloggers have trounced the pros
Click to enlarge. Sources: Thomson Financial, Apple 2.0, company reports
On Sunday, the day after Apple's (AAPL) fourth quarter of fiscal 2011 ended, we posted preliminary revenue and EPS estimates from both Wall Street's Apple analysts and a group of amateurs we've been tracking for a couple of years.
After we posted the chart, one reader who calls himself MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Sep 26, 2011 7:19 AM ET
Between the company, the Street and the amateur analysts, a range of $9.4 billion
Click to enlarge. Data: Company reports, Thomson Financial, Apple 2.0
Apple's (AAPL) fourth fiscal quarter of 2011 ended Saturday, and depending whose estimates you believe, it was either a ho-hum quarter or a record-smasher.
The chart at right shows the actual revenue and earnings per share for the previous 11 quarters -- Q1 2009 through Q3 2011. In MORE
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