In this month of Finance covering business costs, income statements, balance sheets and the analysis of financial statements has caused me to pay closer attention to all the numbers of a company prior to the bottom line. Businesses were required to report their quarterly earnings for this quarter by July 20th 2011. The one business that has caught everyone's eye recently due to destroying all previous estimates is Apple. Some insiders say if Hewlett Packard or Dell dreamed of reporting a quarter as astounding as Apple posted last night they would have to apologize to Steve Jobs shortly after awaking. Apple's cash on hand grew by 16% to $76.2 billion. That works out to approximately $81 per share. If Apple wanted they could write a check to buy Netflix and EBay combined and still remain liquid. Apple's revenue growth is actually accelerating. The company beat EPS estimates by over 30% and revenue forecasts by 15%. These numbers are jaw-dropping but what does it say about the people analyzing the company? Sometimes the people predicting don't always count on the unexpected. The tight-lipped policy Apple has helped keep a mystery and mystic surrounding the company and all of their products. The red elephant in the room of the ever-growing Apple is obviously China. Apple has announced plans to pair with China Mobile and their over 600 million customers to extend the reach of the iPhone. Asia Pacific is already 22% of Apple's revenues (up 12% in 2010 Q2), so they aren't starting from scratch but obviously success in China is going to be critical. Said another way, Apple can only steal so much American business from PC makers and Research in Motion, they need to blast off in China to keep posting the numbers to which Apple bulls have become accustomed, according to Macke. Apple has grown without question but let us not forget that the company relies on Steve Jobs to keep investors happy. When he was sick a few times in the growth process of Apple the stocks took a dip and rose upon his return. Also his return is usually accompanied by the release of either new hardware or software. But either way right now Apple is winning. What happened to Charlie Sheen anyway?
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/breakout/apple-destroys-estimates-stock-still-cheap-152732580.html
