Piper Jaffray

Pros vs. Indies on Apple's Q2 2012: A $6.8 billion gap

The difference in their quarterly forecasts has never been so great

In the three and a half years that I've been pitting the analysts who cover Apple (AAPL) for Wall Street against the growing cadre of independent analysts who do it for fun (and, presumably, their own profit), I've never seen a gap this big -- either in dollar or percentage terms.

According to Thomson/First Call, the published consensus of 42 professional analysts MORE

Apple's iOS devices: Selling 'em as fast as it can make 'em

The company is ramping up production at ever more impressive rates

Apple (AAPL) CEO Tim Cook often says about the company's iOS devices that it is selling them as fast as it can make them.

In that context, the chart published Tuesday by Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster illustrates what may be Cook's most impressive achievement as COO: The rate at which he has been able to ramp up production.

Five years ago, it took MORE

Apple's dividend and buyback: What the analysts are saying

Apple (AAPL) gave Wall Street what it had been asking for

The Street's reaction has been largely positive, and the stock closed Monday at a new all-time high: $601.10, up $15.53 (2.65%) for the day.

Jefferies' Peter Misek:  Dividend and Buyback Bigger Than Expected. Apple announced a $10.60 annual dividend (1.8%) commencing in CQ3 and $10B buyback over three years (to offset dilution). We had expected a dividend announcement in H2 in the MORE

NYC iPad line: Shorter than iPad 2, longer than expected

An analyst offers 3 reasons that 750 customers at 8 a.m. was "strong start"

Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster flew to New York City for Apple's (AAPL) launch of the new Pad Friday morning and counted 750 people waiting in line outside the big glass cube on Fifth Avenue when doors opened at 8 a.m.

He declared it a "strong start" despite the fact that Friday's headcount was 37% lower than the 1,190 MORE

Who first called Apple at $500?

Technically, it was Hudson Square's Daniel Ernst. But we have a few caveats.

Eyebrows were raised in October 2010 when Daniel Ernst hiked his 12-month Apple (AAPL) price target from $300 a share to $500. But perhaps drawing attention to himself was the point. The senior analyst at Hudson Square Research is now a regular contributor on CNBC and his current price target -- $700 -- is once again the Street's MORE

An Apple TV set in 2012?

The hardware is the easy part. The trick is to get Hollywood on board

"Apple enters markets to reinvent them," wrote Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster in a note to clients Tuesday reiterating his oft-repeated conviction that Apple's (AAPL) next big thing is an Apple-branded television set.

To be sure, Munster has scaled back his expectations since he predicted that the company would sell 6.6 million Apple TV set-top boxes in 2009 and MORE

A guide to Apple's guidance

What to make of those pesky forward-looking statements in today's earnings report

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 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

How much of the school tablet market belongs to Apple?

100% according to a survey of educational technology directors conducted in October

In the wake of Apple's (AAPL) iPad textbook announcement Thursday, it might be useful to take a second look at Piper Jaffray's October survey of 25 school technology directors. The sample is small, concedes Gene Munster, who conducted the survey, but so is the population IT decision makers in U.S. schools.

Among his findings:

Apple has a virtual lock on the MORE

Piper Jaffray lowers its Mac estimate, raises its iPhone

Apple's U.S. MacBook sales came in softer than expected in December, according to NPD

In a note to clients issued Tuesday, Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster offered his analysis of the NPD Group's final PC retail sales data for 2011.

The news, as he sees is, is good and bad.

Domestic Mac unit sales were up 12% for the quarter, according to NPD, which isn't bad given that sales of Microsoft (MSFT) Windows PCs MORE