UBS
The S&P 500 with and without Apple: Round 2
March 25, 2012: 6:21 PM ETThe picture is even more striking than it was a month ago
BarCap via Business Insider
In February, Jonathan Golub at UBS started a new fashion on the Street by publishing two versions of his regular quarterly forecast: one for the S&P 500, and another for what he called the "S&P 500 ex-Apple."
Strategists at Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Barclays and Wells Fargo soon followed suit.
In Golub's February calculation, the S&P 500's Q1 2012 earnings were on track to rise 6.8% with Apple (AAPL), but would shrivel to 2.8% without.
"By stripping away that one single company," Golub told the Wall Street Journal, "it is like seeing light through a prism — you see things more clearly."
Last week, Dan Sanborn of Ned Davis Research took another look at the S&P 500 through Golub's prism and saw an even wider spread. Now, according to Sanborn, the index's total earnings growth drops from 7.8% year over year with Apple to just 2.7% without.
Meanwhile Barclays Capital has produced the chart above -- spotlighted Sunday on Business Insider by Joe Weisenthal -- showing the earnings growth of the tech sector with and without its star player. What was a gap has become a chasm.
I'm reminded of Horace Dediu's response the last time this came up. In his Feb. 22 Critical Path podcast, the founder of Asymco.com described his "visceral reaction" to the notion that Wall Street would take Apple's stellar performance as a sign of pessimism, an indication that things aren't as rosy in the broader economy as they seem.
In his view, these with-and-without-Apple analysts have it exactly backward.
Rather than being the exception, he suggests, Apple may be the rule that defines a new era in business. The company is not there to make up for the deficiencies of the rest of the economy. Rather, it is the engine of growth for its era, redefining our ideas about marketing and productivity and changing business processes across whole industries, much as GM (GM) did in its time and IBM (IBM) did in its.
See Apple as the new GM for a summary of Dediu's analysis and the last third of The Critical Path, Episode 26, for the whole megillah.
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Wall Street's low-ball iPhone estimates bump into reality
Reports from Verizon and AT&T suggest they could be off by as much as 45%
UBS' Maynard Um has built a spreadsheet for Apple (AAPL) in which he assumes the company sold 30 million last quarter -- some 800,000 unit higher than the 29.2 million average of 20 Wall Street analysts we polled over the weekend.
But when he totes up the sales numbers coming in from Apple's U.S. carriers, his 30 million estimate MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jan 5, 2012 6:30 AM ET -
5 ways Google's Motorola deal could spoil
The search giant's $12.5 billion acquisition bid is a bold move that could reshape the mobile business. It's also fraught with potential pitfalls.
By Alex Konrad, contributor
FORTUNE -- Sometimes, plan B is pretty good. When Google missed out on buying Nortel Networks' patent hoard earlier this summer, few could have predicted it would make a stunning $12.5 billion cash bid for Motorola Mobility.
The move is sure to change Google's (GOOG) business, MORE
Aug 18, 2011 10:33 AM ETPosted in: Android, Apple, Federal Trade Commission, FTC, Google, Googleplex, HTC, JPMorgan, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, Motorola, Motorola Mobility, Nokia, Patents, RIMM, Samsung, Silicon Valley, Sony Ericsson, UBS -
Analysts: Apple set to report record Mac sales in Q3
Estimates range from 3.8 to 4.6 million. The consensus: 4.2 million, an all-time high
The Mac was hot seller last Christmas. But it was even hotter in the June quarter, according to most of the 43 analysts we polled in advance of our quarterly earnings smackdown.
Thirty of them are calling for Apple (AAPL) to set an all-time record for computers sold when it releases its earnings for fiscal Q3 next Tuesday.
Even MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jul 14, 2011 12:44 PM ETPosted in: Apple, Earnings Smackdown, Gabelli, Hendi Susanto, Macs, Maynard Um, PCs, Quarterly earnings, UBS -
Whose ox Apple has gored
When you look at the market caps of its competitors, the picture is pretty clear
UBS's Maynard Um posted two interesting charts in a note to clients Monday.
The first compares the growth in Apple's value since 2007 with its chief competitors in the PC and handset businesses.
Apple's (AAPL) market capitalization (calculated by multiplying its share price by the number of shares outstanding) now stands at $327 billion, making it the world's MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jul 12, 2011 7:49 AM ET -
Wall Street is back in Silicon Valley, but its welcome may be worn out
By Peter Lauria, contributor
The big banks are back to help the Valley's tech pirates turn into titans, but this time there's a chill in the air.
FORTUNE -- They're back.
After all but abandoning Silicon Valley in the wake of the first dotcom implosion, Wall Street bankers have returned to the tech Mecca en masse, in search of -- what else? -- riches to be made taking startups public.
But the moneymen of MORE
Jun 24, 2011 11:47 AM ETPosted in: Goldman Sachs, Initial public offering, J.P. Morgan, LinkedIn, Morgan Stanley, Silicon Valley, UBS, Wall Street -
4 ways for BlackBerry to stay alive
Despite losing ground to Apple and Android devices, calls for RIM's demise are premature. But the company has to make some changes to move ahead.
FORTUNE -- It's become pretty easy to take pot shots at RIM, the makers of the once iconic and still formidable BlackBerry. While consumer-oriented companies like Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOG) experience high double-digit growth with smart phone adoption, RIM's (RIMM) market share, at least domestically, MORE
JP Mangalindan, Writer - Mar 29, 2011 1:04 PM ETPosted in: Android, Apple Inc., BlackBerry, BlackBerry Playbook, iPhone, Mike Lazaridis, QNX, Research in Motion, UBS -
What the new MacBook Pros mean to Apple's bottom-line
According to one analyst, every 100,000 extra units sold adds 2 cents to Q2's EPS
The new crop of MacBook Pros arrived early this year, with six weeks still left to run in Apple's (AAPL) second fiscal quarter.
Last year the line was updated on April 13, well into the company's third fiscal quarter. The two previous refreshes also came in fiscal Q3.
Why is this significant?
Because, as UBS's Maynard Um points out MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Feb 25, 2011 9:53 AM ET -
The Verizon iPhone: Good for Apple, bad for RIM
Even if iPhone on the Verizon network isn't revolutionary, it is another straw to break the back of IT departments reluctant to move away from BlackBerry, the entrenched but embattled favorite device of big corporations everywhere.
iPhone or BlackBerry? It's a question an increasing number of IT departments ask their employees. Come February, when the iPhone launches on Verizon Wireless' CDMA network, it's likely even more corporate users will be able MORE
Michal Lev-Ram, writer - Jan 14, 2011 11:56 AM ET -
Mac zigs while the PC market zags
Our survey of analysts suggests that Apple is set to report its first 4 million Mac quarter
In the Gartner report issued this week, U.S. sales of Apple's (AAPL) Macintosh computers grew 23% year over year last quarter while overall PC sales (even including the Mac) fell 6.6%.
That's been the story for much of 2010: PC sales weak, Macintosh sales strong.
But the Mac has been on its own trajectory for some MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jan 14, 2011 5:00 AM ET
