Quarterly earnings

Apple scheduled to release Q2 2013 results Tuesday, April 23

The conference call with analysts begins at 5 p.m. Eastern (2 p.m. Pacific).

FORTUNE -- There should, in theory, be fewer surprises than usual three weeks from now when Apple (AAPL) releases the results of its second fiscal quarter of 2013.

In January the company changed the way it gives analysts guidance, replacing the "conservative" estimates of the past indicating what it had reasonable confidence of achieving with a range that reflects its MORE

Handicapping Apple's quarterly earnings and revenue: Q1 2013

If Apple is about to report its best ever quarter, why does the stock keep falling?

FORTUNE (Hanoi) -- It's hard to reconcile the steep downward slope of the small chart above with the upward thrust of the two larger charts at right.

The first shows Apple's (AAPL) share price falling 27% since the close of the company's last fiscal quarter.

The second two charts show the consensus of the 67 analysts we MORE

Did the rise of China's currency screw Apple's Q4 earnings?

If it weren't for the yuan, Apple might have beaten the Street's expectations

FORTUNE -- Ever since Thursday, when Apple (AAPL) confounded Wall Street's consensus by beating on revenue ($36 billion vs. $35.8 billion) and missing on earnings ($8.67 vs. $8.75), analysts have been scratching their heads trying to understand what happened.

Most analysts focused on the shortfall of iPad sales -- an explanation that loses some of its persuasive punch when MORE

Apple's hit-and-miss report: What analysts are saying (u)

Most see a silver lining, despite disappointing Q4's earnings and troubling Q1 guidance

FORTUNE -- The earnings report Apple (AAPL) issued Thursday evening was complicated one, and analysts on Friday -- like voters in the U.S. Presidential election -- were trying to thread the needle between hope and disappointment.

Excerpts from their notes to clients:

UPDATE: Another wave arrived Friday afternoon. New ones on top.

Sterne Agee's Shaw Wu: Rare EPS Miss But Would MORE

Apple's Q4: Michael Walkley called it; the indies miss again

For the third time in five quarters, the professional analysts outgunned the amateurs

FORTUNE -- It was a great story while it lasted.

For nearly three years the professional sell-side analysts who cover Apple (AAPL) for the big banks and brokerage houses got clobbered every quarter by a motley group of amateurs -- bloggers, day traders and individual investors who bet on Apple to beat the Street's consensus and hadn't been wrong MORE

What the hell happened to Apple last week?

It lost $40 just before a product launch and what should be record Q4 earnings

FORTUNE -- Andy Zaky had some explaining to do Friday.

Not only had he risked his reputation as a canny Apple (AAPL) trader by issuing a "buy" recommendation on Oct. 9 -- his sixth in as many years -- at what he said was at or near Apple's bottom, but he had lambasted here, here and here MORE

Meet one of the guys tugging on the Apple slingshot

Doug Kass is happy to report that Apple has dropped $50 since he started trashing it

FORTUNE -- In the weeks before Apple (AAPL) releases its quarterly earnings we like to keep an eye out for what Jason Schwarz, in his classic Apple: Seven Reasons Shorts Love It, called the Apple slingshot:

"If you can keep a good stock down then you are able to load up for the ride back up," he wrote. MORE

Apple to release iPhone 5 sales (and 2012 earnings) on Oct. 25

The results of a hard-to-predict quarter are coming out a little late this year

FORTUNE -- Apple's (AAPL) fourth fiscal quarter of 2012 -- which closed last Saturday, Sept. 29 -- was supposed to be even weaker than the third.

As CEO Tim Cook explained to analysts last July, Q3's earnings were reduced by customers who put off buying an iPhone after reading press reports that Apple was working on a new MORE

Apple to announce Q3 2012 earnings July 24 at 5 p.m. ET

Expected to easily beat guidance. iPad sales should up a lot, iPhones down a bit.

FORTUNE -- Following a pattern that has become familiar to hard-core Apple (AAPL) watchers, the company announced today that it has scheduled its earnings call for the third fiscal quarter of 2012 on the first Tuesday three weeks after the last Saturday of the quarter, which ended June 30.

Got that? If so, you should already know that the MORE

How low can Apple go?

There are, in fact, limits to how far the stock can fall

FORTUNE -- Watching Apple's (AAPL) share price see-saw over the past three weeks -- up to $644, down to $555, up to $618, down to $581 -- investors might well wonder whether there's any limit to how high or, more to the point these days, how low the stock can go.

To set some guidelines, we asked Bullish Cross' Andy MORE