24/7 Wall St.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) posted earnings of $1.01 EPS on revenues of $6.22 Billion; Wall Street was expecting $0.86 EPS and $6.07 Billion in revenues. 

The company’s guidance is always deemed overly conservative, but they expect revenue of about $9.2 billion and earnings per diluted share of about $1.42. The estimates for next quarter are $1.39 EPS and $8.6 Billion in revenues, so this guidance is above when the company usually guides softer.  Gross margin was 33.6 percent, up from 29.2 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 40 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

The product numbers are stellar:

• 10.2 million iPods sold
• 1.119 million iPhones, above plan.
• 2.164 million Macs sold.

Apple ended the fiscal year with $15.4 billion in cash and no debt.  Apple shares rose another 2.3% again to over $174.00 in regular trading, but shares are trading up to over $180 in after-hours trading.  Options traders were expecting a move of up to $12.00 to $13.50 range in either direction this morning and there were over 100,000 contracts listed in the open interest in the closest strike prices for November.

Apple was also listed as one of our key window dressing stocks and here was the 24/7 Wall St. full earnings preview.  Jim Cramer has it as one of his "New Four Horsemen of Tech," although recently he noted how some of these may see some expected profit taking.

Jon C. Ogg
October 22, 2007