Apple has first earnings miss in about a decade.

Apple missed their lofty market forecasts for the first time in 40 quarters as far as I can understand it, from the twittersphere. The first earnings miss in 40 quarters? That is like, wait, ten years? The analysts have been wrong all along, and it turns out that they are wrong this time too, because they missed and did not blow the street away, as they usually do. Predictably the stock is lower in the pre market and in Germany where it is listed too. As is Intel, GE and a whole host of other tech stocks we know. I waited and waited afterhours, but just before 10:30 last evening I decided to call it a night and rest my head. I had read a couple more chapters of "This time it is different" and learned again that serial defaulters have to move to the next level in order to break the cycle. For instance, as I believe it, France last defaulted in 1788. So the book tells me (or my reading of it is like that).

OK, off the topic, we are dealing with the Apple earnings miss. I suggests that as an Apple shareholder you read the following press release on their website -> All-Time Record Mac and iPad Sales - Highest September Quarter Revenue and Earnings Ever. It is missing one rather important note there, that the iPhone sales were dampened by the looming announcement of a new phone (turns out that it was the iPhone 4S) and as such that was where most of the disappointment was. Some important "stuff", gross margins where a lot better and sales outside of the US are now 63 percent of group revenue. Their war chest, just the cash part has inflated to 81.6 billion Dollars. As some guys pointed out, that has grown 50 billion in the last two years.

This company captures the imagination so much that there is a website that is committed to analyzing the company (in fact many more than just this one), but this is worth a read. From the AppleInsider -> Apple Q4 2011 earnings disappointment attributed to iPhone transition 'hiccup'. We pretty much share the same view around here, normally the leak of a new product does not take place so long before the October 4 announcement, and that could have seen people delay their purchase of iPhones in anticipation of a newer model. This tells me exactly what I need to know, what this one closely!!

A couple of other views, one from the WSJ -> Apple Loses Some of Its Shine and the other from Bloomberg -> China Becomes Apple's Second-Largest Market, Cook Says. I like that part, and it plays directly into a theme that we follow really closely, aspirational consumerism. We continue to buy the stock and will take advantage of the fall off in price, believing that this is indeed a hiccup. Sales of other products, the iPad and the Mac, as you can see from this piece -> About That Apple Quarter.... iPad sales are still flying. And Mac is no longer a computer for graphic designers.