stock posts

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.

Thursday, Briefings.com, CNBC and a passel of other market analysts predicted that a 4 for 1 stock split would be announced at the Apple Shareholder Meeting. This rumor moved the market, but there are conflicting opinions to why. First, for the uninitiated, a stock split is a zero sum game. One interpretation is that a firm considers its stock too highly priced for the average consumer and decides to split. For example, let's say that Apple is trading for $200 and you have one share. If a 4 for 1 stock split takes place, you will wind up 4 shares, instead of 1, but each share will be valued at $50. Did you gain or lose any money? No. It's all on paper. However, to those not familiar with the Buttonwood tree, and that's a lot of us, it sounds like 'quick buy Apple and you'll be getting 4 times as much'. The case for this sort of stupidity is well made by Barrons.

Stock splits are nothing new to AAPL. They've split 2 for 1 three time in the past, in June 1987, June 2000 and February 2005.

There are two general schools of thought on the reason behind stock splits, and they are total opposites. The first theory is that a company will split a stock if it is in trouble to allow lower dollar investors to buy their shares at half the price and thus incur less risk. The other school of thought is that a good company realizes their stock is just too expensive for the small trader who has some cash on the sidelines. It is meant to give the small guy an easier way to buy some stock without needing to commit the $200 for a share. Both sides have their points and, to an extent, both points are based on smoke and mirrors since they do not effect the worth of the company or the aggregate value of the stock by one penny.

What a day it's been. The tablet is finally out. That's right, the tablet we've been waiting years for is real and will be on sale soon, only it's called the iPad, and it's pretty similar to the iPhone. Just in case you missed something today, here's everything we've learned about the magical and revolutionary device, all lined up in one easy-to-browse list. Just think, in 60 days, you'll be able to flip through these posts with your finger. On a 9.7" IPS screen, I mean.

Liveblog and major news

• Apple Event Metaliveblog
• Apple announces the iPad
• AAPL goes on a rollercoaster ride
• See tweets live during the event on @tuawlive
• iPad pricing starts at $499, available in 60/90 days

Hardware

• Apple's official iPad video, specs page
• Apple making its own chips, starting with the A4
• iPad will ship with 802.11n Wi-Fi, 3G optional
  
• Apple announces keyboard dock for iPad
• Five iPad accessories available at launch
• What's missing from the iPad

Software

• All iPhone apps will run on the iPad
• Apple announces iBooks, an e-reader for iPad
• Apple shows off new versions of iWork apps for iPad
• iPhone OS 3.2 SDK released, supports iPad but covered by NDA

The above image from SingularityDsgn graphically shows the wild roller-coaster ride that Apple's stock has been on today. It traded at roughly 1.5% below Tuesday's closing price heading into today's iPad announcement, but started climbing during the iBooks announcement. AAPL's stock took a major leap when pricing information was released, and is currently trading around 209.69, up about 1.75% (please note that these numbers fluctuate frequently).

Lots of jumping is about right for any Apple event, though the big jump when price was announced is somewhat surprising. AAPL actually tends to drop after an event, as there are so many rumors flying around ahead of time that investors are easily underwhelmed. But it looks like especially the pricing news won their approval today. As always, this is not official stock information, and you shouldn't make any buy or sell decisions based on what you read here.

In an article on MarketWatch, Frank Cioffi explains why he believes Apple will deserve the investor's attention in 2010. First off is continued strong iPod sales, and we've got to agree. After sustaining a rate at or above 10 million units sold per quarter, you've got to wonder, "Doesn't everyone have one already?"

But seriously, the annual updates are compelling enough to prompt people to upgrade (iPod touch, nano with video) or cheap enough to warrant a second unit (iPod shuffle). Apple knows how to sell iPods and the trend should continue in the new year.

Also notable is Apple's seemingly renewed commitment to the Apple TV. Once described as a "hobby," Apple released version 3.0 of its software late last year. Also, there are rumors about that Apple is pursuing a subscription model with the major television networks. Expect to hear more from the Apple TV team in 2010.

Additionally, Cioffi focused on Steve Jobs himself.

"...Jobs' determination is as extraordinary as his ability to create compelling products."

After missing half of the year to recover from a liver transplant, Steve returned to work in June as promised and, from an outsider's perspective at least, is back to business as usual. As Cioffi pointed out, what happened in Steve's absence is even more important for Apple's future: The stock continued to climb despite rumors of his rapidly-declining health and Apple demonstrated a strong bullpen of talent beyond Jobs.

Cioffi goes on to list strong Mac sales, the App Store's performance and the ever-present tablet rumors as additional points of note, so go and read the rest of the article. Here's to a prosperous 2010!

[Via AppleInsider]

It's been a roller coaster ride over the past two years for Apple (AAPL) stock. In December 2007 it hit a then-peak of $199.83 a share. Just two months later AAPL sunk to $125. Three months after that it had recovered to the $180s, but by November 2008, AAPL had plummeted to $82 a share. Since then, the stock has recovered and hit an all-time closing high of $207 on November 17, 2009. As of today it's sitting pretty in the $190s -- though some think the drop from the $200s to $190s is suspicious.

I argue with people all the time why Apple didn't deserve its dips and plummets over the last two years: The company is sitting flush with $23.5 billion $35 billion in the bank, in cash (about the same as the total market value of another major US computer maker, named for its CEO and founder, who 12 years ago famously suggested shutting down Apple and giving the money back to shareholders). It has zero debt. It is one of the most respected companies on the planet and has the world's greatest CEO. But more importantly than the cash and its status, I believe AAPL is a great buy because it has such small market share in all the categories it operates in save one...

Is it better to have a lot of something good or a little of something great? If Apple CEO Steve Jobs is any indication, it's better to have both.

In September, Alpha Steve had an estimated personal net worth of $5.1 billion, enough to end up the 43rd richest person in the U.S. according to Forbes' list of the 400 richest people in the states. This week he's up to at least $5.4 billion. If you think that's because of the tear on which Apple's stock has gone over the past few weeks, you're only a little over half right.

According to filings by Apple (AAPL), Jobs owns 5.426 million shares of Apple stock. As of Tuesday night, Apple's stock had picked up 26.39 points since Forbes' counted the 400 "haves." Jobs shares had gained $146 million in value. Not bad.

Disney (DIS) filings say Jobs owns 138 million shares of the happiest company on Earth. Those shares have not had nearly the run enjoyed by Apple shares over the last few weeks, gaining only 99 cents as of Tuesday night. Still, Jobs has so many of them that they've increased in value by $136 million. Not bad either.

Apple's meteoric rise plus Disney's incremental rise equals $282 million more for Apple's CEO and Disney's largest private shareholder.

It's better to have both.

[via Fortune]

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.