A panel on CNBC's Fast Money was recently remarking on AAPL's apparent invulnerability to the recession that's currently affecting the United States, noting that it's jumped 40% so far this year, outperforming the NASDAQ. J.P. Mark of Farmhouse Equity Research suggests that the excitement that persists among Apple's retail employees customers is a part of that performance.

As for the stock's immediate future, the panel and Mr. Mark point to this summer's concurrent release of iPhone OS 3.0 and a likely new iPhone model as a powerful stimulus. Finally, Mr. Mark notes that it isn't often that an electronic gadget becomes more useful and valuable over time.

I definitely agree with that. My iPhone is now almost two years old and it does much more than it did when I first opened its box. Also, if a new iPhone does appear this summer just as my current contract is expiring, I'll almost certainly buy it.

Looking to pick up an iPhone, but not interested in getting bogged down by any contracts with "the Man?" Your time may have come -- The Boy Genius apparently got their hands on some slides from an AT&T training session saying on March 26, AT&T will offer a "No-commit" for their existing customers on both iPhone models -- it'll be $599 for the 8GB and $699 for the 16GB.

This isn't quite a deal anyone's planning to jump at, however, since the phones themselves are likely still locked to the AT&T network. Not to mention that you've got to already be an AT&T customer, and they're only selling one phone per line that you've already got. Which means these phones are... for Grandma, who doesn't want a contract and can't make it to the store herself? Businesses might be interested as well, we guess, but for most of us, it's still cheaper to just buy the phone and sign the AT&T contract (assuming that you actually want to use it as a phone).

What it does likely say, however, is that AT&T is expecting an iPhone hardware upgrade, and wants to clear out as much of the stock they've got now as they can (to suckers who are willing to pay more).

[via Engadget]

Piqqem, a service that crowdsources stock picks, has some interesting demographic data about who says they're buying AAPL. Among female users, Apple is the most highly rated stock to buy.

The lowest-rated stock is Dillards -- which leads to an interesting analysis by Alex Salkever, director of research and marketing at Piqqem. He says that focused specialty retailers are better at weathering the economic downturn so far than large department stores.

"And while Apple has seen sales growth in its chain stores level off, I submit that a big reason why Apple has held strong is due to the attraction its products, stores, and services hold to women beyond the teenage years," he writes.

Personally, I think linking womens' stock choice specifically to the retail experience falls somewhere between a little chauvinist and a little short-sighted. AAPL is also the most popular stock among all of Piqqem's users, for example. It certainly can't hurt Apple's business, though, to appeal to women, teens, and other key demographics with disposable income right now.

Many analysts point to Apple's strong cash position as reason enough to buy AAPL. Indeed, Apple's stock price has recovered some since Macworld, and is trading around $98 a share. It's certainly shy of their 52-week high of $192 a share, but it's well off their 52-week low of $78.20.

While Apple stock is up over seven percent since its positive earnings report and conference call yesterday afternoon, both Nokia and Microsoft have released dourer reports about their financial outlook.

Microsoft said that it will lay off up to 5,000 people, about five percent of its workforce, over the next year and a half, according to the Seattle P-I. 1,400 of those jobs would be eliminated today. The news comes as the company announced earnings per share two cents less than their quarterly guidance -- 47 cents versus 49 cents -- on revenues of $16.63 billion. Analysts had expected revenues upwards of $17 billion.

Nokia today posted a 69 percent drop in profits for its last quarter. Nokia stock earned 15 euro-cent per share in profit, compared with 47 euro-cent in the same quarter last year. Sales fell 19 percent to €12.66 billion, missing forecasts of €13 billion.

What can we take away from this? Perhaps this is understating things, but Apple appears to be doing very well against its competitors. In yesterday's conference call, the company announced that it had grown sales and revenue even in the face of challenging worldwide economic conditions. In both retail and iPod sales, much of the growth was outside the United States. Apple sold 88 percent more iPhones than they did the same time last year, although much of that may be attributed to pent-up demand for the iPhone 3G.

At midday, AAPL is $10 higher than its record-low close on Tuesday, trading at around $88 per share. Both NOK and MSFT are trading down about $1.65 each.

[Via Daring Fireball.]

Update: Sony, too: It's posting a record annual loss of $3 billion, and plans to close factories and lay off workers.

Just a reminder: Be sure to come back today at 5 p.m. Eastern (that's 2 p.m. Pacific) for Apple's First Quarter 2009 Results Conference Call. We'll be liveblogging the occasion, with contributions from your favorite TUAW bloggers, and yours truly.

Apple is streaming audio from the call here. A recording of the call will be available at that page for a few weeks afterward.

Fortune's Apple 2.0 blog has its roundup of projected Q1 sales numbers from Bernstein Research's Toni Sacconaghi and Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster:

• Mac sales. Munster: 2.5 million to 2.6 million. Sacconaghi: 2.57 million.
• iPod sales. Munster: 18.6 million. Sacconaghi: 18.1 million.
• iPhone sales: Munster: 6.4 million. Sacconaghi: 3.5 million to 4 million.

In related news, AAPL hit a two-year low yesterday, closing at its nadir of $78.20 per share. Also, Bloomberg is reporting that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission will review Apple's 10-K filing from last year. Apple hasn't been accused of any wrongdoing, but Bloomberg says the SEC wants to make sure investors weren't being misled about Steve Jobs' health. (Via Macworld.)

More coverage of the earnings report is available at our sister site Blogging Stocks.

Citi analyst Richard Gardner repeated the firm's "buy" recommendation for Apple stock, but reduced his estimate through 2011 to "reflect a more conservative view of consumer spending," according to the Associated Press.

Gardner reduced his 12-month price target to $132 from $153. He noted "soft" iPhone shipments in the last quarter of 2008 and conservative guidance for the first quarter of 2009 as reasons behind the cut.

"We view weakness as a buying opportunity," Gardner said. If Apple's stock were to drop by $7 or $8 before the company's Q1 2009 conference call on January 21, "[Citi] would be aggressive buyers." He expects the company will announce a profit of $1.42 per share for Q4 2008 during the call.

AAPL was down by about $1.45 in afternoon trading.

[Via Mac Observer.]

AAPL fell 6.57 percent today after the Macworld announcements yesterday and a general retreat among tech-sector stocks. The company's stock closed at $89.16 per share, and over 42 million shares changed hands.

A lot of the selling was done last night in after-hours trading, with the stock opening the day's trading this morning around $91 a share.

In related news today, Oppenheimer Funds cut its rating on Apple stock from "outperform" to "perform," based largely on the fact that Jobs will not present the keynote speech at Macworld Expo next month.

Oppenheimer analyst Yair Reiner wrote a note to clients, saying "we don't know why Steve Jobs has pulled out of his annual address at Macworld [...] Whatever the reason, the unexpected announcement has underscored the greatest risk to Apple's long-term success -- its dependence on Jobs' health and its apparent lack of a succession plan."

AAPL has remained off its 52-week low of $79.14, which it recorded on November 21.

Morgan Stanley analysts yesterday cut AAPL's price target to $95, mostly citing the weak economy. They said that despite price cuts, extreme interest in the iPhone, Mac users' high satisfaction, and marketshare momentum for Mac sales, the quarter will be slow for Apple.

Blog Notable Calls said it wouldn't have been surprised if AAPL slipped by five points yesterday, but instead the stock gained 34 cents a share before the closing bell.

On a brighter note, Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu sees promise in iPhone gift cards, according to Fortune's Apple 2.0 blog. As with any gift card, Apple collects revenue from the customer up front. However, Apple can't report the revenue until the phone is activated, which will likely be during the first quarter of next year.

Wu anticipates Apple will sell 6 million iPhone handsets during the company's fiscal Q1 2009, which includes October, November and December 2008. Morgan Stanley analyst Kathryn Huberty thinks Apple will sell only 4 million that same quarter.

In the same Apple 2.0 story, Philip Elmer-DeWitt notes that Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster looked at how many units Walmart might sell, after pricing details leaked on Monday. He conjectures that each Walmart store could sell 1,284 iPhones in 2009, accounting for nearly 10 percent of Apple's worldwide iPhone sales.

AAPL was up by $2.50 or so in midday trading.

Apple met or beat analyst expectations for sales over the weekend, selling 13 Macs and 3.4 iPhones every hour, according to one Piper Jaffray estimate.

Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu said that Apple's Black Friday promotions helped drive retail store traffic, according to reports from distributors. Wu also noted that the iPod touch is sold out at Amazon.com, which leads him to believe that Apple could sell $10 billion worth of products this quarter.

Thomas Weisel Partners' Doug Reid got the impression that Apple sales were up from last year. He was less optimistic about Dell's retail performance at Best Buy locations, noting that salespeople there were not strongly recommending Dell models at 35 stores they checked.

Weisel analysts expect Apple to sell 2.4 million Macs during the fourth quarter.

Deutsche Bank analysts also conducted their own checks over the weekend, and found demand to be "solid," considering the current global economic woes. They expect Apple to sell 5 million iPhones this quarter, and reiterated their "buy" rating and price target of $150 per share.

AAPL was down slightly in morning trading.

BusinessWeek's Gene Marcial is gushing -- gushing -- over Apple stock, suggesting they're not only a good buying opportunity for those who already own some shares, but a good entry point for those who have never owned stock in the company.

"The case for Apple is simple: Its stock is cheap based mainly on strong earnings and sales growth, and the outlook for further expansion of sales and profits. And the stock's profile based on such benchmarks as its technical chart pattern and price-earnings ratio affirms Apple's attraction," he writes.

Marical quotes Standard & Poor's Thomas Smith, Barclays Capital's Ben Reitzes, and Needham's Charles Wolf -- all who have their own reasons to recommend buying the stock. Of 34 analysts who track the stock, 27 recommend buying and five recommend holding. Only two suggest you sell.

As of this writing, Apple was up by over $7 per share at 89.75 during a generally positive session this morning. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up above 8,311, an increase of 265 points.

Apple shares today dropped to an intra-day 52-week low of a penny over $75, and rebounded to close at $80.49 per share. That was down 5.8 points from yesterday's close.

This marks the lowest prices for Apple stock since the introduction of the iPhone in early 2007. Many stocks lost ground today in a broad market selloff that saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average down nearly 445 points.

Marketwatch.com's Rex Crum says that AAPL has lost "the iPhone premium": That is, whatever gains the company made since the introduction of the popular handset. Apple shares hit a peak of almost $203 per share late last year, but those days are long gone.

If there's a silver lining to this gray cloud, it's that now might be a good time to buy. Macworld Expo is coming in January. In years past, the stock price has risen in anticipation of product announcements at the expo, leading to a selling frenzy the day of the keynote.

Of course, past performance does not necessarily indicate future results. In this market, who knows?

According to the San Jose Mercury News, no evidence has been found to support the claim that a teenager who posted a rumor online saying Steve Jobs has suffered a heart attack tried to profit from the lower stock price.

One person involved in the investigation (who declined to be identified because it's still ongoing) said the agency hasn't unearthed any trading records that show the teen benefited from the drop.

The SEC and Apple officially declined to comment. An SEC manipulation case would depend on the teenager's intentions, according to the Merc.

The initial report, posted to CNN's iReport website on October 3, was publicized Silicon Alley Insider, prompting nervous investors to sell their AAPL shares. That day, the stock fell by 5.4 percent, but recovered to close down by three percent.

Update: My apologies: I misread the lead. Entirely my fault.

Apple shares were higher by over 11 points in after-hours trading following a very positive Q4 conference call where the company announced a profit of $1.26 per diluted share.

As we noted in our liveblog earlier, Apple posted a profit of $1.14 billion on revenues of $7.9 billion for the quarter. The company also said it had sold 2.6 million Macs, 11 million iPods, and 6.8 million iPhones in the three months ending September 27. It's safe to say we're past the 10 million mark for iPhone unit sales.

Apple's margins for the quarter fell by a tenth of a percent from Q3 to 34.7 percent. During the Q3 conference call, Apple was careful to mention that margins would be lower for the quarter due to a new product announcement. That guidance was out of an abundance of caution, and executives noted that all new product announcements related to that margin guidance have been made. Apple's margins this time a year ago were 1.1 percent lower, at 33.6 percent.

Steve Jobs himself was on the call, a rarity, and he crowed about how Apple sold more handsets than RIM did. He also mentioned Apple's significant cash reserves of $25 billion and lack of debt.

The conference call made no mention of the exclusion of FireWire on new MacBooks, nor any confirmation that the Mac mini line could either be seeing a refresh or end-of-life.

Shares of Apple stock closed higher today, among a widespread buying spree that pushed the Dow Industrials up a record-breaking 936 points.

AAPL closed at $110.26 per share, an increase of $13.46. Nearly 55 million shares changed hands.

Microsoft, Dell, Google, HP, Sun, and AT&T also posted double-digit percentage gains for the day.

Analyst firm Sanford C. Bernstein upgraded Apple stock to "outperform" this morning, saying the company's short-term prognosis looks good, despite the dip in the market. Bernstein did, however, cut its price target by $50 to $135.

AAPL was up slightly in after-hours trading.

Gene Munster is skeptical that Apple's guidance of lower margins for the rest of the year in its Q3 conference call back in July, and expects the company to continue to outperform expectations.

The Piper Jaffray analyst said that lower prices for NAND flash memory will offset any reductions in price for new iPods introduced last month.

Munster speculates that even with an introduction of a sub-$1,000 MacBook before the end of the year, Apple's margins will remain healthy. Yes, it will have an impact, but not to the degree that Apple execs hinted in their phone call: Munster thinks margins would only fall to around 30 percent.

In fact, Munster says "investors would see the lack of redesigned, lower-priced Macs as a more significant negative than they would a 30 percent GM guide in the December quarter." (Emphasis mine.)

He reiterated his "buy" rating. Munster's price target for AAPL is still higher than many others (at least recently), at $250 per share.

[Via Ars and AppleInsider.]