Toni Sacconaghi

Apple data-center dreamin'

An analyst imagines everything it might be when -- and if -- it opens this spring

Among the people who follow Apple (AAPL) closely, the massive server farm the company is constructing in Maiden, N.C., has achieved near mythic status. It has become the answer to every unanswered question about Apple's troubled online strategy, from what Steve Jobs was thinking when he green-lighted Ping to how MacBook Air users are supposed MORE

Why aren't there cheaper tablets?

An analyst offers four reasons nobody has managed to match Apple's iPad

"Undercutting Apple on pricing has been the de facto strategy for competitors. Surprisingly then, no competitor has yet matched Apple on tablet pricing, which begs the question of why."

So begins a note to clients issued Wednesday morning by Bernstein Research's Toni Sacconaghi, who estimates that Apple (AAPL) may have a 750 to 975 basis point (7.5% to 9.75%) cost MORE

Is there anybody left to buy AAPL?

An analyst asks whether it can keep outperforming the market without paying a dividend

Toni Sacconaghi just won't give up.

For more than two years, Bernstein Research's top Apple (AAPL) analyst been after Steve Jobs to spend some of the company's growing cash hoard ($51 billion as of September), preferably on a stock buyback or cash dividend.

"Shareholder frustration," he wrote in an open letter to the board of directors in August, "is MORE

Why Steve Jobs doesn't pay dividends

He will ignore the latest call for Apple to share its huge cash hoard as he ignores them all

Most of the arguments for and against the open letter to Apple's (AAPL) board of directors issued Thursday by Bernstein Research's Toni Sacconaghi have already been made. (See here and here.)

Sacconaghi's polemics against Apple's policy of holding on to its profits -- rather than distributing them to its shareholders -- tend to MORE

Where will Hurd go next?

Mark Hurd's departure is mired in muck, but C-suite headhunters are sure to focus less on the rumors than on the possibilities.

Yes, I know. The focus is supposed to be on who will be the next CEO of Hewlett-Packard (HPQ). Quite right. The company is nuts to suggest it won't skip a beat with Mark Hurd's resignation last week. A new CEO will shake up the senior-management ranks, and the MORE

How many iPads did Apple sell in Q3?

The second in a series of previews of Apple's results for the third fiscal quarter of 2010

You might think that estimating iPad sales for the fiscal quarter that ended on June 26 would be a pretty easy call for analysts, given that Apple (AAPL) let it be known five days before the end of the quarter that it sold its 3 millionth iPad on June 21.

Yet the analysts we polled MORE

Apple: The bull case, the bear case

An analyst takes his quarterly look at the company from both sides now

There are a lot of superlatives being thrown around this week as analysts position themselves for Apple's (AAPL)'s fiscal third quarter earnings report, scheduled for July 20.

In a note to clients issued Wednesday, Bernstein Research's Toni Sacconaghi, not always the company's greatest booster, called Apple "the most secularly attractive name in our coverage universe."

Brian Marshall of Gleacher & MORE

Report: Apple 'clicking on all cylinders'

A Barclays analyst leaves a meeting with top executives more bullish than ever

You wouldn't know it from Apple's (AAPL) share price -- which at one point Friday morning was down another $20, having closed Thursday off nearly $10 (see here) -- but there's nothing wrong with the company that some well-crafted Wall Street reform couldn't cure.

Analysts who pay attention to Apple's fundamentals have been issuing one positive note after another. MORE

iPhone gross profit margin nears 60%

An analyst takes a close look at Apple's margins and finds the Street's consensus lacking

Bernstein Research's Toni Sacconaghi gets a lot of attention from critics when he shortchanges Apple (AAPL). (See, for example, The case of the missing iPhones.)

When he comes to praise Cupertino? Not so much.

Case in point: The largely unnoticed 13-page report he issued last week on the iPhone's gross profit margins, which he estimates at nearly 60%. MORE

Sacconaghi: How Apple sells 50 million iPhones in 2011

Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster -- an Apple optimist -- took a lot of heat when he predicted two years ago that Apple (AAPL) would sell 45 million iPhones in 2009. Unfortunately for him, the deal he expected Apple to strike in China still hasn't materialized, and he's since cut his 2009 expectations back to 25 million.

Now comes Bernstein Research's Toni Sacconaghi -- usually considered an Apple pessimist -- with a MORE