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Apple stock hits a new intra-day all time high and Gene Munster weighs in
Apple stock (AAPL) has hit a new all time intra-day high by a mile, rising 7.25 percent as of about 11 AM. At last look, it's sitting at $329.81 and is happily ringing in the new year on the first day of 2011 trading. It may be totally coincidental, but our old friend Gene Munster, analyst for Piper Jaffray, has announced a few predictions for 2011. The first non-surprise is that he (and just about everyone else) believes that the iPhone will come to Verizon, but he thinks it won't be until the March quarter with a 95 percent probability. I think he's betting low on that one. He gives a 90 percent probability to iTunes offering a cloud-based service and an 80 percent probability that cell phone providers will begin subsidizing 3G iPads (since this is presently happening in other countries, so why not here?). Gene also has some predictions that he considers rock-solid, including new laptops coming soon, a refresh of the Mac Pro in the first half of the year and new iMacs in the second half of 2011. The iPhone 5 will rear its head this summer (I'd bet the house on that one), and the iPad 2, if that's what it winds up being called, will flower in the spring. Another no-brainer will be that new iPods will be out in the fall, but then again, new iPods are always out in the fall. [via The Mac Observer]
Apple could sell record-breaking 4.3 million Macs this holiday
Sometime in January Apple will hold their FY2011 Q1 earnings call, and you will be sure to hear these words: "The quarter that just ended was the best quarter in Apple's history." It's something many of us have gotten used to hearing as Apple has said it (or a derivative of it, adding "non-holiday" between "best" and "quarter") every quarter for at least the last seven years. That familiar catchphrase shows no sign of stopping as NPD says Apple is on track to sell between 4.1 million and 4.3 million Macs in the December quarter. As AllThingsD points out, Apple's U.S. Mac sales are up 20 percent year-over-year for the first two months of the current quarter. International sales are growing even faster than domestic sales with 22 to 28 percent year-over-year growth for the first two months of the current quarter. Still haven't picked up Apple stock? There's still time as many think there's a 30ish-percent 12-month upswing coming.
Goldman Sachs resumes Apple coverage, targets AAPL at $430
Investing firm Goldman Sachs has decided to start covering Apple's stock profile, and that news sent the AAPL stock price up to $325.06 this morning, a nice boost from the day before. And that's not all -- not only did Goldman Sachs pull AAPL into its reporting fold, but it was about as bullish as you can get on a stock, saying through a spokesman that "we believe significant growth and profit opportunities for this platform still lie ahead." The company had been covering Apple previously, but when that special analyst left the firm, it took them a while to find a replacement. But it looks like they've found someone else they feel is qualified to make a prediction. The company predicts a $430 price target for AAPL, so if any of you happen to fall into some money over this coming holiday, you'll now know just where to put it. (Note: this is not actual financial advice, obviously, and there's no guarantee of success in the stock market.) Apple seems to be the success story that keeps on growing -- AAPL has hit a few all-time highs in 2010, and the forecast is pretty sunny all the way around.
AAPL could hit $410 according to R.W. Baird analyst
If only this blogger had held onto that Apple stock that was bought for about $8 while dabbling in the market in the late-1990s. Instead the profits from selling it at $27 a share were put into such wise investments as Webvan. The only good thing about my dot com bubble investing period is that only a small chunk of money was set aside to play with and no more was added. On the other hand if I had just had more patience and stayed in Apple, I'd have a very nice chunk of change with it now trading at over $317 per share and likely to go much higher. According to a recent Associated Press article, William V. Power, an analyst with R.W. Baird is projecting that AAPL shares will be trading at as much as $410 before long and he is not alone. Numerous analysts have projected $400+ for Apple and the average of 38 different projections is $370.50. The key to that continued growth according to Power is the iPhone which currently only commands about three percent of global mobile phone sales. As smartphones grab an ever larger stake of the handset market, Apple and its prime competitors, Android and Windows Phone 7 are all likely to see big gains in the next few years and that will certainly help Apple's bottom line and stock price.
An all-time intraday high for Apple stock
What goes up must keep going up apparently: Apple's stock hit an new, intraday high today of US$320.18 and is trading up $6.24, or 1.99%, as of this writing. These numbers knock out Apple's previous intraday record of $319.00, set just a little while back on October 18, 2010. Apple's survival of the USA's economic downturn has been almost supernatural. In the past few months, we've seen Apple grab nearly 50 percent of handset industry profits, post its first $20 billion quarter, break $300 in the stock market, surpass Microsoft's market cap and set record after record after record. And it all started with two geeks in a garage.
While store customers get Halloween patches, Apple's retail VP cleans up
File under "Awww": Children visiting the Bellevue, WA Apple Store on Halloween were treated to collectible instant-stick logo patches, says iPhone Savior. The patches ran out pretty quickly, but they were popular while they lasted. Patches are certainly nice keepsakes, but if you want to talk real holiday rewards, let's consider Apple's senior VP of retail Ron Johnson. Over the weekend, as noted by Apple 2.0, an SEC reporting form listed Johnson as selling a few stock options. To be precise, he sold 150,000 shares on Thursday, with an average selling price per share of $306.07 -- which, along with the strike price (the 'sticker price' on the shares, which are granted by Apple) of $11.06, means he cleared a cool $44 million in pretax profits. Johnson isn't a first-time seller, either; over the past three years his total profits from option sales come to about $200 million. Can't argue with the job he's doing, as Apple's retail stores continue going gangbusters quarter after quarter -- but maybe he needs a new nickname. RJ Nabisco, because he's making bread? Hmm. Needs work. image courtesy Interior Design Room
Apple releases Q4 results: $20.34B revenue, $4.31B profits
Top line: hell of a beat. Apple today reports earnings of $4.31 billion, or $4.64 a share, in the fiscal fourth quarter, versus $1.82 a share in the year-ago quarter. Street guess was $4.08 a share on sales of $18.90 billion, according to Thomson Reuters, so like I said: hell of a beat. 3.89 million Macs were sold during the quarter (not 4M, but close, very close). 14.1m iPhones (almost 2x the previous year's number) and 4.19m iPads also sold in Q4. Looking ahead, Peter Oppenheimer forecasts $23B in revenue and $4.80 per share earnings in the holiday quarter. Given the degree to which this quarter beat the predictions... whoa. Join us at 5pm ET for the liveblog of the analysts' results call. Disclaimer: I am a happy holder of a small amount of AAPL.
Boom! AAPL share price over $300 for the first time today
If the wizards of Cupertino take note of such milestones, there are probably bottles of champagne being uncorked this morning. Apple's stock price has been hovering above $300 per share since the market opened, marking yet another all-time high for the consumer electronics company. While nobody knows for sure if AAPL will close above $300 per share this afternoon, it's nice to see another record being toppled. Apple will report Q4 financial results on Monday, October 18th, and TUAW will be liveblogging the earnings call. Be sure to join us on Monday for what should prove to be another indication of stellar performance for the company. Screenshot from DailyFinance
Apple's Q4 earnings call will take place Oct. 18
Can Apple continue the string of unprecedented financial success? Will the 4th quarter of 2010 (ending tomorrow, September 30th) be even more successful than the 3rd quarter, now that the iPad has had time to dominate the market for three more months, and the iPhone 4 has overcome the negative "grip of death" publicity? We'll all find out on October 18th, when Tim Cook, Steve Jobs, and a rogue's gallery of tech analysts bring us the 4th quarter earnings call for Apple Inc. As usual, TUAW will be providing a liveblog of the event, complete with commentary by our staff of bloggers. The event usually starts about 5 PM ET, and we'll be sure to give you a heads-up as the day approaches. [via The Mac Observer]
AAPL hits new 52 week and all-time high
Apple's stock price has been reaching stratospheric heights lately, and today it may have even made it to the mesosphere. A stock alert this morning showed AAPL at 288.04, which is a new 52 week high as well as the highest price the company's stock has ever reached. Although we're getting close to October, the traditional month of stock market crashes, it's good to see that our favorite consumer electronics company is doing this well. As this post was being written, AAPL was up over $289 a share.
Reminder: Apple Q3 Financial Results at 2PT/5ET
Apple is set to announce their Q3 2010 financial results today. As usual, Apple will stream a webcast of the event at 2:00pm PT/5:00pm ET on Tuesday, July 20, 2010. The main device that is expected to move Q3 results is the iPhone 4, but this will also be the first full quarter of iPad sales. As always estimates vary, but the average consensus is that Apple sold 8.17 million iPhone units this quarter and 3.3 million iPad units. 9.3 million iPods are expected to have been sold and 3.2 million Macs. Apple is expected to report earnings of $3.11 per share on sales of $14.75 billion for Q3 2010. That's what's expected, but Apple has typically had a history of blowing past analyst expectations. Will this be another "best non-holiday quarter" in Apple's history? We'll find out at 2:00pm PT. Until then, tell us what you're predicting in the poll. %Poll-49795%
Apple and Microsoft now neck and neck in market capitalization
Apple and Microsoft, together at last -- in terms of market capitalization, anyway. While that may have seemed inevitable to anyone that's been watching the markets lately, it's certainly nonetheless a significant milestone in the history between the two companies, and all the more striking if you look at a chart comparing the two companies over, say, the past five years (see for yourself after the break). As you can see above, however, Microsoft is still hanging onto a slight lead by one measure of market capitalization, but if you use another factoring in debt and other factors, Apple is now actually ahead of Microsoft in total value as of yesterday, and behind only Exxon Mobil among all US companies. No word on any celebrations breaking out in Cupertino just yet, but Apple will soon have a prime opportunity to do a bit of crowing should it choose to.
iPad supply constraints still in play, says Piper Jaffray
As we noted earlier, finding the iPad of your dreams hasn't been getting any easier in recent days. Even with an assumed uptick in production to handle the imminent overseas launch, the search for available units on the ground in the US has been tough. Today's Apple 2.0 note on availability cites a report from Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster, who found that 74% of the 50 retail outlets he surveyed had no iPads in stock, and those that did have some in house only had Wi-Fi models; the 3Gs remain scarce as four-leaf clovers. With 10 day delivery waits on online orders, it's clear that demand has not slackened -- but it may be that a good chunk of the manufacturing allocation is currently heading for the aforementioned country launches that will kick off one week from today. You would think that "We're selling every one of them we can make" is a pretty good problem to have, but that doesn't always play that well. In a classic maneuver known as "the market's glass of unicorn tears is half-empty," Munster simultaneously acknowledges that he completely lowballed his million-unit quarterly estimate for iPad sales while suggesting that the supply constraints may cause Wall Street to balk at AAPL's premium price if the company can't catch up with demand over the summer.
Cigars all around: AAPL catches MSFT on S&P 500
[This is officially the most times I have had to change a headline. –MR.] Remember "I would shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders" and "the future of Apple looks like Silicon Graphics"? How about "doomed to fail?" Remember "The Mac market is ending?" Good times, good times. You've come a long way, baby. VentureBeat notes that as of today's market close, Apple's total market valuation position on the S&P 500 index passed Microsoft's. Apple is now #2 on the US list after ExxonMobil. Update: Looking at the valuations, as of the close Apple is still behind by quite a bit. Not sure where VB's numbers are coming from, but we'll find out. Update 2: Looks like MarketWatch ran incorrect confusing numbers at the close today, which is where the erroneous info came from. Apologies to all. Update 3: Trust the WSJ to clarify matters. While Microsoft still has a larger full market value than Apple, the Standard & Poor's index is "float adjusted market capitalization weighted" (gesundheit!), meaning that it is tracking the smaller number of shares actually available for public purchase, as opposed to the larger number tied up in instruments such as employee options. Based on that measurement, Apple has in fact pulled ahead of Microsoft, according to S&P's Howard Silverblatt: "AAPL has an index market value of $241,534 million and MSFT has a market value of $239,515 million – AAPL is #2." [Thanks Tim!] Disclaimer: I have a small, long-term position in AAPL. [via Techmeme]
Reminder: Apple 2nd quarter results due next week
Apple has released a media alert announcing its FY10 second quarter results conference call -- which we already knew was on 4/20, but it's nice that they've made it official, again. The conference call will take place on Tuesday at 2 pm PDT/5 pm EDT. Those interested can listen to the call starting at 2 pm by tuning into the webcast of the event. The quarterly results themselves will be announced shortly after the markets close in the US at 4 pm EDT. Apple had issued guidance of $2.06-$2.18 profit per share on $11-$11.4 billion of revenue. As usual, this is well below the $2.43 per share most analysts expect Apple to report. For those hoping to hear iPad numbers, don't hold your breath. Though the iPad was announced in January, it did not ship until April 3rd, which means its sales numbers will not factor into Apple's Q2 earnings. TUAW will have analysis of the earnings during the call in our regular quarterly earnings liveblog.
Apple #56 in Fortune 500 rankings
Apple has moved up 15 spots in Fortune's annual Fortune 500 rankings to be the 56th largest company in the world by revenues. Apple had 2009 revenues of US$36.5 billion in 2009, up 12.5% from 2008. Despite the massive revenues, Apple still ranks third, behind HP (ranked 10th overall) and Dell (ranked 38th overall), in Fortune's "Computers, Office Equipment" industry rankings. Apple's share price total return to investors was a whopping 149%. Many believe that that's just the tip of the iceberg with Apple analyst Gene Munster predicting a year end target price of $299 a share. As of the time of this writing, Apple's share price sits above $248. The top three companies in Fortune 500's 2009 rankings were Wal-Mart, Exxon Mobile, and Chevron. In the Internet Services and Retailing industry, Amazon came in first (ranked 100 overall), Google second (ranked 102 overall), and Liberty Media third (ranked 227 overall).
On Apple's $40 billion, and the question of dividends
AAPL has been hitting new highs just about every day. Yesterday the stock price hit an intra-day high of $230.20, a lofty height indeed. We pointed out earlier that Apple now has the fourth largest market cap of any publicly traded domestic company, so maybe it's time to revisit the question of Apple declaring dividends on its stock. Apple has not declared a dividend since December of 1995. After the last shareholder meeting, Steve Jobs stated that the money was best left in the bank so there would be no question of loans if something big was to be bought. "The cash in the bank gives us tremendous flexibility," explained Steve. The Motley Fool makes an interesting case in favor of dividends. Apple has no history of massive acquisitions, and keeping $40 billion around for just that reason sounds less than reasonable. A case is also made for keeping the money as preparation for the next big recession. This doesn't seem to hold much water, however, since analysts predict that Apple will grow by 18% per year for the next five years. That should provide more than enough cash, predicting that Apple will report net income of around $21 billion in 2014. Of course, predictions are often wrong, but Apple has been excellent when it comes to beating expected earnings numbers for some time. 77% of informal Motley Fool poll respondents think that Apple should declare dividends. After all, that cash is really owned by the stockholders and it seems that a good number of them would like to get some of it back. Read on for another view.
Apple shares hit record high on iPad shipping announcement
Note to Microsoft, HP, Dell, and whoever else wants to get in the next-gen tablet game: your concepts are nice -- even spectacular, in the case of Courier -- but Apple's about to actually ship a product, and investors are taking note. AAPL shares hit a record high of $219.36 this afternoon after the news that iPad pre-orders would begin on March 12 with an April 3rd delivery day, and they closed at $218.95, which is up around four percent. That's got us curious: given the choice between actually purchasing the iPad and twiddling your thumbs waiting for unannounced, unpriced, and even possibly un-real devices like the Dell Mini 5, the HP Slate, or the Courier, are you taking the sure thing or holding out for your vaporous dream device? Hit us up in comments -- and be nice to each other, it's the weekend.
AAPL hits intra-day all time high, headline writers scrounge thesauri for 'stratospheric' synonyms
Apple's announcement earlier today of an on-sale date and presales for the iPad seems to have struck a major chord with investors. Never mind the fact that April 3 only equals "late March" for unusually large values of March; when it comes to magical & revolutionary, Wall Street votes "yes, please" with a record intraday high for AAPL. The stock hit $219.70 at 1:14pm this afternoon, and is on track to remain above yesterday's close of $210.71. Apple investors who bought in 5 years ago, when the stock traded around $40 -- or even those who sought a bargain in January 2009, and picked up some shares in the mid-$80s -- are undoubtedly delighted. Just in today's trading, Apple's market capitalization is up over $7.5 billion dollars, at around $198B total; compare to Google's 138B$180B, HP's $123B, and IBM's $165B. Not too shabby. Update: Closed at $219. Jim Cramer's "Stop Trading! " segment included his philosophy of trading AAPL, which suggests a buy and hold now, dump right before April 3, then buy back in during the inevitable backlash against the iPad when the press says it's not deserving of the hype, "because they will be wrong." [h/t Silicon Alley Insider] Note: I hold a small, long-term position in AAPL.
iPhone gross profit margins nearly 60%
Bernstein Research's Toni Sacconaghi issued a 13-page report last week in which he estimated that the iPhone's gross profit margins were an astounding 57.8%. Those margins tower above Apple's competitors with RIM estimated to have 43% profit margins, Nokia 33%, Motorola 32%, and HTC 31.7%. Sacconaghi believes that the iPhone's high gross margins could change Apple's business model as the iPhone's share of Apple's overall revenue stream grows from 30% in FY09 to an estimated 45% to 50% in FY11. Philip Elmer-DeWitt over at Apple 2.0 notes that while the Street generally assumes Apple's profit margins will decline over the next few years, Sacconaghi believes they will increase due to a few key points: iPhone prices are actually increasing. In Q3 2009, the average wholesale price was $588. In Q1 2010 it's risen to $638. Buyers are still more than eager for the iPhone. There is no sign of price resistance from either customers or carriers. Mobile partners are still lining up to get the iPhone with Apple adding 15 new ones over the past 4 months. Despite his Rosy outlook, Sacconaghi is reducing his iPhone shipment estimates by 1.3 million units in FQ4 10 and 5.5 million units in fiscal year 2011 under the assumption that there won't be an iPhone for Verizon before mid 2011. He also expects T-Mobile will get the iPhone before Verizon does. As for the iPad, Sacconaghi estimates its gross profit margins to be between 30 to 32%, not the 50% suggested by iSuppli. Sacconaghi rates AAPL as "Outperform" and has a price target of $250. In his report he states, "We believe that on a cash flow basis the stock is very attractively valued and that the stock is the most attractive secular name in our coverage universe."
