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Apple CEO Tim Cook this week sold another $28.7 million worth of Apple stock, according to documents filed with the SEC.
Cook sold 269,993 shares at prices ranging from $105.95 to $107.37, netting himself a total of $28,703,590. Combined with the 334,000 shares he sold last week for nearly $36 million, Cook has gained approximately $65 million over the course of the last few days.
Less than 1 hour into trading and the day's volume already over 26 million when average daily volume is at 33.8 million. Maybe Buffett/Berkshire bought more?
Aside from services revenue growth, another bright spot is Apple's expectation of Q1 2017 revenue to be between $76 billion and $78 billion. This means that Apple sees revenue growth again (growth of 0.17% to 2.8%) vs Q1 2016 revenue of $75.87 billion.
No one cares about mac. It's iPhone or bust with this company.
Product is now mature (ie everyone has one that wants one and there are no longer major advancements every 2 years). Company will make a ton of money for a long time. Low P/E stock = not much downside IMO.
Lots of people care about the MacBook. Many people have been waiting to either buy their first or upgrade what they have until something new comes. Its not going to make as much for them as the phone, but they will sell.
Apple earnings: iPhone 7 could break streak of shrinking sales
Published: Jan 27, 2017
Analysts forecast growth in Apple revenue and iPhone unit sales after three consecutive quarters of declines
Apple Inc. and its iconic smartphone may return to growth when the tech giant reports holiday-quarter earnings after the market closes Tuesday, which would reverse the first declines since the iPhone was born.
iPhone unit sales have declined for three consecutive quarters, leading to the first fiscal-year revenue drop for Apple in more than a decade, but analysts expect Apple’s flagship product to show a rebound in the first fiscal quarter, which was also the first full quarter of iPhone 7 sales. Apple’s fiscal year starts with the holiday-shopping season, typically the largest quarter of the year for the company.
Credit Suisse analyst Kulbinder Garcha said his recent checks with Apple suppliers indicate that overall iPhone shipments “remain in line to ahead of expectations.”
Citing recent supply and demand checks, Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty on Jan. 16 cut her estimate for December-quarter iPhone shipments to 75 million units from 79 million, and she warned that Apple would likely give March-quarter guidance below investors' expectations.
Analysts remain cautious on fiscal 2017 as a whole, however, with growth expected to be relatively flat through the next few quarters. Longer upgrade cycles, increased competition and slow growth in emerging markets continue to be problems for Apple, weighing on its ability to meaningfully expand.
Earnings:
While revenue is expected to gain, profit could take a slight hit for Apple. Analysts expect the company to report earnings per share of $3.23, down from $3.28 in the year-earlier period, according to FactSet. Estimize predicts Apple earning $3.25 a share. Apple has a long history of beating the FactSet consensus, which tends to prove a slightly more conservative estimate compared with that of Estimize. Apple has topped the FactSet consensus estimate in nine of the past 10 quarters, but it has come up short of the Estimize forecast in three of the past six quarters.
Revenue:
Sell-side analysts expect Apple to report revenue of $77.4 billion, according to FactSet, up from $75.8 billion in last year’s holiday shopping quarter. Contributors on Estimize predict revenue of $77 billion. Apple set guidance at a range of $76 billion to $78 billion when it last reported earnings in October. The company has missed the FactSet consensus estimate for revenue in three of the past four quarters, and has fallen slightly short of the Estimize consensus estimate four quarters in a row.
Revenue from the iPhone is projected to increase by 3%, to $53.1 billion from $51.6 billion in the year-earlier period, on a slight increase in units sold. Analysts believe Apple sold 78 million iPhones in the quarter compared with 75 million a year ago, according to FactSet. Average selling prices are projected to fall, with the FactSet consensus predicting $687 per unit compared with $735 a year ago.
What to watch for:
Analysts will be focused on iPhone sales and the continued growth of software and services, which surpassed the Mac in 2016 to become Apple’s second-biggest revenue generator behind the smartphone. According to FactSet, revenue from services is forecast to reach $6.9 billion, compared with $6.1 billion in the year-earlier period.
Macquarie analyst Ben Schachter said he believes services, and particularly the App Store, “can drive significant upside to consensus gross margins and earnings.”
Zino, one of the more bullish Apple analysts on Wall Street, also believes Mac sales will improve following the company’s release of new Mac-family products at the end of October. The FactSet consensus calls for a year-over-year decline for Mac revenue, $6.5 billion versus $6.7 billion a year ago. However, data from IDC released last week showed PC shipments fell just 1.5% world-wide during the holidays, a marked improvement from the 10.6% decline last year.
This trader bets it all on Apple getting crushed after earnings
Jan 30, 2017
We first met F.S. Comeau back in April, when we interviewed the 30-something from Montreal for a story about WallStreetBets, a Reddit forum that rose to prominence over the past year for its irreverent and gun-slinging approach to playing markets.
Count Comeau among those that have experienced the lofty peaks and painful valleys of the group’s high-risk approach to trading. In fact, one particularly tough stretch landed him in the hospital with stress-related issues. That’s what hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of losses can do to a guy.
This Tuesday, he vows, will mark his last and boldest attempt to erase losses and reach market riches. In WallStreetBets lingo, his Apple bet — and our call of the day — is his “final YOLO.” For you non-millennials, that’s “you only live once!”
So what does Comeau do for his swan song? Basically, he is using what’s left of his stash to bet big against Apple by buying put options that, according to Comeau, could net him upwards of a few million if his prediction holds true. But if Apple, which currently sits near $122, trades at $128 or above after the report — poof! — $240,000 gone.
Here’s a look at the trades:
“IT IS SIMPLY NOT POSSIBLE FOR APPLE TO SPIKE UP POST-EARNINGS,” Comeau wrote. “It didn’t happen to Google, it didn’t happen to Western Digital, Qualcomm, or even Intel INTC, or Microsoft (2%! Yay!), despite excellent earnings (which Apple won’t have).”
Famous last words?
Go here for his entire 5,000-plus word post explaining why he’s quitting trading for good, how “the stock market is rigged” and how a drop of at least 20% in Apple shares on Wednesday will earn him back the fortune he’s lost in the trading pits. The iPhone maker is due to post its quarterly results late Tuesday.
Some called Comeau out for a being fool, others snickered and wished him luck, and then there were several others who bought into the concept of the trade.“
Maybe I’m an idiot, but after reading that entire post, I’m in for some Apple puts,” writes OcculusResurrectio. “Not YOLO-ing, but the logic is pretty sound.”
The iPhone maker's stock hit $133.76 in early trading Monday, putting Apple less than $1 away from its intraday trading high of $134.54, reached in April 2015.
The stock surge, pushing Apple (AAPL, Tech30) to a $700 billion market cap, comes amid renewed optimism for the iPhone.
Goldman Sachs raised its price target for the stock on Monday, citing the likelihood of "major new features" like "3D sensing" being added to the next iPhone model, according to an investor note provided to CNNMoney.
Apple's previous high was set six months after it released the redesigned iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, kicking off what CEO Tim Cook described as the "mother of all upgrades."
Since then, however, Apple has bucked its tradition of overhauling the iPhone every other year. The newest models on the market today look nearly identical to the iPhones available in late 2014.
The long wait, combined with this year marking the iPhone's tenth anniversary, has only raised expectations that Apple is about to significantly overhaul its smartphone and reignite demand.
Apple's annual sales fell in the 2016 fiscal year for the first time since 2001 as iPhone sales, still the majority of its business, declined in three consecutive quarters.
Apple even cut its CEO's pay by 15% due to the company's failure to meet its performance goals for both sales and profits.
But that losing streak just ended.
Apple sales started growing again in the December quarter, driven by stronger demand for the iPhone -- particularly for the larger and more expensive iPhone 7 Plus.
The company sold 78.3 million iPhones for the quarter, setting a new record. At least some of that may be due to the Samsung's smartphone recall woes.
Mark Moskowitz, an analyst with William Blair, wrote in an investor note this month, "Samsung's Note 7 struggles likely helped."
The iPhone isn't the only reason Wall Street is excited about Apple. There's also President Trump.
Despite Trump clashing with Apple during the campaign, investors are now optimistic Apple will benefit from at least one Trump proposal: cutting taxes on cash that U.S. businesses bring back from their overseas accounts.
Apple currently has $230 billion in cash held in foreign accounts. If Trump and Congress make it cheaper for Apple to bring that money back, it could be used for acquisitions and buybacks.
Warren Buffett’s big bet on Apple may have made him $1.1 billion in just six weeks
Feb 14, 2017
If Warren Buffett can do a cartwheel, he’s probably doing one right now, as Apple Inc.’s stock continued its surge and notched yet another record close.
The famed billionaire investor’s investment vehicle, Berkshire Hathaway Inc., disclosed in a regulatory filing Tuesday that it loaded up on Apple’s stock during the fourth quarter, increasing its stake to 57.36 million shares as of Dec. 31, up from 15.23 million shares as of Sept. 30.
Apple’s stock rose 2.5% during the fourth quarter. But since then, aided by stronger-than-expected first-fiscal-quarter results, reported Jan. 31, the stock has shot up $19.20, or 16.6%, closing Tuesday at a record level for a second straight day.
If the stake remained unchanged, Buffett’s Apple shares would be worth $1.1 billion more than they were just a little over six weeks ago.
Apple to start India manufacturing in coming months with iPhone SE: Report
FEb. 17, 2017
Apple Inc will in the coming months start assembling its lower-priced iPhone SE models at a contract manufacturer's plant in the southern Indian technology hub of Bengaluru, an industry source with direct knowledge of the matter said on Friday.
Apple's Taiwanese manufacturing partner Wistron Corp is setting up a plant in Bengaluru to focus solely on assembling iPhones, a separate source told Reuters earlier this month.
Apple's move comes as it seeks to boost its share in the world's fastest growing major mobile market, where handsets far cheaper than Apple's iPhones dominate. It also comes as smartphone sales growth is slowing in Asia's other massive market, China.
To lower prices, Apple has been seeking to set up local production and has been in talks with the Indian federal government regarding issues such as tax concessions.
The industry source told Reuters the initial manufacturing of the iPhone SE model was not contingent on those concessions.
Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Economic Times newspaper earlier on Friday reported Apple planned to initially assemble 300,000 to 400,000 iPhone SE handsets in India. The industry source told Reuters the numbers would be substantially lower to begin with.
The source also said it was too early to say what other phone models Apple would assemble at the Bengaluru plant.
Apple shipped 2.5 million iPhones to India last year, with a third coming in the December quarter, according to market researcher Counterpoint, which estimates that three-quarters of smartphones sold in India were made locally.
In the fourth quarter, Apple ranked tenth in India's smartphone market but led the premium segment with a 62 percent market share, Counterpoint said.
Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and a host of Chinese players including Xiaomi and Vivo dominate India's smartphone market where the vast majority of phones sold are priced below 15,000 rupees ($225).
In comparison, the entry level iPhone SE model sells on Amazon.com's India site for 28,433 rupees ($424).
08-26-2016, 08:00 PM
$3.50 (3.24%)
After Hours : $116.00 
$2.25 (-1.90%)
