Stock market

In October, Apple stock dropped below 600 for the first time since July. Since then, following a number of new product launches, AAPL has continued to fall and now only sits slightly higher than last week at roughly 550 per share and a market cap of $518 billion. While many have pointed to uncertainty regarding new product launches and executive level changes as the cause of Apple’s falling share price, no one quite has a definitive answer for why AAPL has hit a nearly six-month low. In a report today, titled “A dramatic reading of Apple’s share price”, Asymco analyst Horace Dediu might have the answer.

Dediu studied 13 bear AAPL markets starting with the October 2001 launch of the iPod. As noted in the report, Apple’s stock had just fallen 70 percent year-over-year and continued to drop another 20 percent following the iPod launch. However, since the iPhone launch, Dediu found “every dramatic drop in share price was followed by a surge in earnings growth.” The graph above maps earnings growth following bear Apple markets since the 2007 iPhone introduction.

So, why exactly does this happen? Dediu explained his theory:

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Apple will report its fiscal first quarter results tomorrow for the October to December 2011 period during which the Cupertino, Calif.-based company saw the death of its cofounder and the record-breaking sales of its latest iPhone.

Apple passed the $400 billion market cap briefly last week, and it is the world’s second most valuable company after Exxon Mobil Corp. Its 2007-debut of the iPhone effectively piloted the touchscreen smartphone market, meanwhile the iPad carved a new consumer electronics category for the industry, as well.

Analysts expect earnings of $10.04 per share and revenue of $38.92 billion, according to FactSet, compared to Q1 FY11 where Apple earned $6.43 per share on $26.74 billion in revenue. Apple said it reckons earnings of $9.30 per share and revenue of $37 billion for Q1 FY12, but the technology giant usually underestimates its forecasts, and analysts generally ignore such predictions…

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Apple passed Exxon today to become the most valuable company on earth.  The excitemnt only lasted a few hours until the market rally at the end of the day put Exxon back on top, however.  But, that didn’t stop people wondering: What’s next for Apple?

Enter Robert Cyran, Columnist for Reuters, who doesn’t understand why Apple isn’t headed straight towards being the first $1Trillion company.

Apple’s sales have been surging 80 percent a year, and its profit faster. What’s more, it trades roughly in line with the growing stock market — and at less than half the price-to-earnings multiple it fetched in 2006, when revenue growth was much slower. Apple now trades at about 11 times estimated earnings for the fiscal year ending September 2012. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index is valued at about 10 times next year’s profit. But Apple’s sales growth is nearly 10 times faster than that of the average company. Apple also holds $76 billion of cash and investments.

So, what’s the deal? Apple, if put on the same P/E multiple it traded on in 2006, would be worth $900 billion.

And who has brighter prospects than Apple right now?
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