Will Apple Avoid Tech Earnings Woes? (AAPL)

Investors holding Apple Inc. (NASDAQ; AAPL) and traders alike are all eagerly going to be waiting for Monday’s (July 21) earnings release after the close.  We would warn you ahead that First Call estimates are likely to see some updates on the actual estimates themselves and on the target prices analysts have for forecasting now that we have seen a disappointment from both Google and from Microsoft.

First Call has estimates currently pegged at $1.08 EPS and $7.36 Billion in revenues.  As far as next quarter (also its fiscal year end), we show estimates as $1.24 EPS on $8.31 Billion in revenues. 

It is worthless to use options today because options expire in justover an hour at 4:00 PM and the roll-date will have different values onMonday. If we had to hurl out a "guestimate" we’d assign a value ofnearly $10.00 as far as what options traders are braced for in eitherdirection.  Analysts still have average price targets north of $215.00per share and most analysts still have the pom-poms out for theirratings.

But there is one key level we’d like you to watch and this shouldn’tchange too much by Monday’s close.  Apple’s 200-day moving average hasbeen used for support twice in July and we show that 200-day movingaverage today as being $164.78.  Again that will change, but shares areonly $1.00+ above that handle after today’s drop of more than 3%.  Thestock is also currently in the middle of its 52-week trading range of$111.62 to $202.96.

One concern we have is the amount of time that the company was withoutiPhones stocked in its own stores and at AT&T Wireless stores.All the new 3G iPhone sales are in this quarter we are already in so will not at all be in the report Monday besides Steve Jobs noting how many units it has sold. Whether or not that means anything in a softening spending climate isanother thing entirely.

We’ll follow up with much more detailed earnings analysis on Monday.Remember, these estimates and targets may be different on Monday.

Jon C. Ogg
July 18, 2008