iPod

Apple's blow-out quarter: Once again, the Street blew it

Humiliated by a bunch of bloggers, amateur analysts and assorted day traders

With revenues that grew 73% and earnings that more than doubled, Apple (AAPL) proved Tuesday that the fourth quarter results that so disappointed Wall Street last fall were a fluke. The company that Steve Jobs built is still that rare beast in American business: A $400 billion giant that acts -- and grows -- like a start-up.

Tuesday's results also MORE

Apple blows past expectations in first post-Steve Jobs report

Shares jump nearly 9% in after-hours trading on record sales of $46.33 billion, record profit of $13 billion, record 37 million iPhones, 15.4 million iPads, 5.2 million Macs

Everybody was counting on Apple (AAPL) to report record earnings, but nobody -- not even the most bullish independent analysts -- predicted anything like the blowout the company just reported.

Trading was halted at 4:27 p.m. after Apple's shares had closed at $420.50, down MORE

Can Apple still deliver an earnings surprise?

The 18% gap between the Street's estimates and the independents' suggests that it can

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 they were (or should have been) an embarrassment MORE

iPod unit sales estimates for Q1 range from 9 to 18 million

The consensus among 44 Wall Street and independent analysts is just under 14 million

If you ignore the fact that iPhones -- and for that matter, iPads -- are a kind of iPod, then sales of what was once Apple's (AAPL) biggest moneymaker have been drifting south since Christmas 2008, when they peaked at 22.7 million for the quarter (Apple's fiscal Q1 2009).

Among the 44 analysts we've heard from so far, the MORE

Excerpted for radio: The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs

A 60-minute version of Mike Daisey's one-man show is now available online

UPDATE: This American Life retracted the episode described below. See here.

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If you couldn't make it to the Berkeley Rep or Washington's Wooly Mammoth or New York's Public Theater to catch monologist Mike Daisey's brilliant, funny, disturbing report on working conditions in the Shenzhen factories where most of Apple's (AAPL) products are assembled, Ira Glass has done you MORE

Apple buys Anobit for half a billion dollars

Cupertino's largest acquisition since it bought Steve Jobs' NeXT in 1997

According to Reuters, Apple (AAPL) has sealed the deal that was rumored last week to buy Anobit, the Israeli company that makes the flash memory technology used in Apple's iPhones, iPads and MacBook Airs.

For Apple, this is a big acquisition, both in dollar terms and in technology. The price -- a reported $500 million -- is larger than the $472 MORE

Apple analysis for idiots: An Andy Zaky tutorial

It's a piece of cake, he says. Just take the company's revenue guidance and add 15%

In a 5,000-word essay posted in Bullish Cross Monday, Andy Zaky laid out his method for estimating Apple's (AAPL) quarterly revenue and earnings numbers. He starts with three assumptions:

That most Wall Street analysts and financial writers are completely clueless and couldn't analyze their way out of a paper bag
That the earnings guidance numbers Apple issues each quarter MORE

Horace Dediu's estimates for Apple's first quarter of 2012

The creator of Asymco.com is looking for 67% growth in sales and 91% in earnings

Like most independent analysts, Asymco's Horace Dediu got clobbered last quarter when Apple (AAPL) reported earnings that grew by "only" 52%. (See chart at right).

As a result, the best estimates last quarter turned out to be those submitted by the Wall Street analysts with the worst Apple track records. (See our Q4 2011 Earnings Smackdown here.)

But MORE

iPhones and iPads top teen wish lists this Christmas

Only "money" and "clothes" scored higher in an annual pre-holiday survey

For 22 years, Piper Jaffray researchers have been asking American teenagers what they want for Christmas, and for the past four years Apple (AAPL) products have been moving steadily up the wish lists.

All told, according to a note to clients issued Monday by senior research analyst Gene Munster, 11.2% of the 5,700 teenagers surveyed this fall named one Apple product MORE

Asymco: Apple's ability to innovate is valued at $0.00

Judging from the stock price, the company is only as good as its last hit product

Asymco's Horace Dediu spent much a recent trip to London talking to dozens of buy-side analysts. Not to be confused with sell-side analysts, these are people who control trillions of investment dollars and never share their thoughts or strategies in notes to clients.

He came out of those meetings convinced that the investment thesis of the MORE