AAPL has been on a steady rise since March in spite of a dip during one week in April. Even today it is rising in the face of a stagnant S&P and a falling a pretty flat Dow. It is apparent that the disappointing iPod numbers and lack of a new iPhone announcement early this year are not permanently hurting Apple. I only wish I'd had the funds to acquire some more AAPL when it was on sale early this year.

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If possible I would like to edit my post because the Dow isn't falling - it's pretty flat as well...

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I really liked AAPL when it was in the $130's, and still like it now. No other company can buy the kind of marketing that Apple gets when they release a new product, and with the 3G iPhone around the corner, this will only do well.

Apple is a strange company. In an economy teetering on recession, consumers tend to stop buying luxury items and move towards buying mostly consumables. Apple has created such a mystic and aura around their products that they are somewhat recession proof, although they will slow down, but not like other companies.

Also, this is not a bad idea...http://keynoteindexfund.com/

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Apple has been on a run the past week thanks in large part to Google's earnings call last week. The thinking seems to be that if Google could post better-than-expected earnings, despite what is widely perceived as a troubled economy, Apple might also be poised for strong results.

Note, however, that what happens on Wednesday will largely be a result of what Apple projects for the upcoming Q3, rather than what already occurred in the now-finished Q2. We saw this back in January as well: Apple's Q1 numbers were breathtaking, but Peter Oppenheimer issued an earnings expectation that was conservative, if not slightly guarded. This caused a huge sell-off of the stock and prompted a lot of headlines and blog posts to the effect that Apple, as a luxury consumer goods manufacturer, is "overexposed" in a stagnating economy.

What investors are interested in now is what happens in the next three months, not what just occurred in the past three. Even so, there is good reason to anticipate that Apple will announce strong revenue and profits in Q2. MacBook Air sales appear to be brisk, and Apple's announcement that it surpassed Wal-Mart as the #1 music retailer in the world should mean a significant growth in Apple's iTunes revenue.

What will drive the stock up or down Thursday morning is whether Apple forecasts a strong Q3 or only a moderate Q3. Again, there is good reason to believe that Q3 for Apple will be a good quarter. There is every indication that Apple will announce some significant revision to the iPhone, which coupled together with the iPhone 2.0 software update and the launching of the AppStore (all of which is scheduled to occur during the latter part of Q3) should indicate a strong uptick in Apple's iPhone business.

It will be interesting to see how Apple plans to account for AppStore revenue; presumably it will be similar to iTunes revenue. It will be even more interesting to see to what extent the iPod business is indeed falling off, particularly with respect to the "classic" (non-touch) models. If some of the January pundits are correct and Apple's traditional iPod business has indeed reached a plateau, it will be important for Apple to demonstrate that the iPhone is stepping into its place as a multi-year revenue honeypot.

One way or another, I wouldn't be overly surprised to see a slight dip in share price after the Thursday announcements, even if they're strong. AAPL is sitting at $168.16 after close today, and even given Apple's tremendous position in the market and unmatched profitability and growth potential, that's quite a lofty share price in a market that's being stalked by significant big-market credit concerns and an oil-per-barrel price that's as stratospheric as Apple's stock growth.

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Microsoft needs to free up some cash for their crazy takeover of Yahoo and desides do dump most if not all of it's 100 million dollar investment that they made in 1996 when Apple's stock was 8-10 dollars (Remember keynote speech with Gates on the big screen?)... I have know idea why know one else saw this coming or even talks about it after the fact?!?!?!?

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why does Apple call it's stock name "AAPL" even though there's only one 'a' in "apple"? What's the other 'a' for?

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