04/20/2006, 12:35pm, EDT

Thursday, April 20th

Needham maintains "hold" on AAPL

Needham & Company today maintained its "hold" rating on Apple shares, saying that it will continue to do so until the company's transition to Intel-based Macs is closer to completion. "Apple escaped the first quarter of its transition to Intel processors, delivering results in line with our forecast. The company faces at least two more quarters where demand could be time shifted to subsequent quarters," analyst Charles Wolf wrote in a research note obtained by MacNN. "However, once the transition is complete by the first quarter of fiscal 2007, we believe Mac shipments have the potential to surge on the strength of the Mac's newfound ability to run Windows applications along side Mac applications." Apple shipped 8.5 million iPods during its second quarter, which proved modestly higher than Needham's forecast of eight million units. The analyst also noted that Apple's gross margin of 29.8 percent was far higher than expected, saying that falling flash prices were largely responsible for the $0.09 upside in earnings per share.

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fsauer1

Wait, Here's another--

04/20, 12:52pm, EDT

If anyone ever wanted an example of a financial analyst's bias against Apple, this is it. Apple meets or exceeds everything this analyst said he wanted from Apple's first quarter, and it still isn't good enough. I've watched a group of analysts do this with every good news since I worked for Apple in the mid-1980's. These people are leeches who make money off of other people's honest, intelligent efforts, contribute absolutely nothing to the economy directly and still try to tell CEOs how to run their companies while having no direct knowledge or experience. This part of Wall Street is actually ruining this country's economy with its quarterly mentality and shareholder value growth at any cost

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Ganesha

On the other hand...

04/20, 1:03pm, EDT

If Apple sales are slow because of the transition... NOW is the time to buy.

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robfarri

fsauer1

04/20, 1:20pm, EDT

You are absolutely right dude! I'm a UK student but I worked in investment banking for 6 months on work experience recently and I prob read a few of these 'reports' everyday. They serve a purpose in educating equally clueless investors but are still an exercise in stating the obvious. Being an analyst is a pretty nobrainer job for the most part to be honest. I've just bought some AAPL stock recently and shall be hanging on to it for the long term. The only way is up baby! (so they say...)

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Terrin

Potential Problems

04/20, 2:05pm, EDT

Apple stock is not a sure thing. Sure it is fine on the innnovation front, and sales are good. Apple, however, faces several major lawsuits, two of which could be quite costly. First, is the Burst suit. All I need to do is say look at Blackberry to see what can happen if Burst's patents are upheld. Second, is the Beatle's lawsuit, which a verdict against Apple will result in 1) protracted ligitgation, and) a likely high payout.

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cebritt

Lawsuits minor issue

04/20, 2:54pm, EDT

Burst got only $60 million from Microsoft so if Apple settles, it will be for less than that. $60 million is rounding error at Apple.

And Apple and Apple Corp will probably come to a similar settlement since Apple Corp is remastering their songs for digital download.

Anything under $1B will have little impact on AAPL. The bigger issue is that Apple now has Intel on it's side and sum of Apple and Intel is greater than the parts.

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notehead

wait until August...

04/21, 2:08pm, EDT

Several months ago when the Mactels came out I predicted AAPL will hit $110 by September. I'm still standing by that, because I suspect that there are a lot of users waiting for Mac towers that will run XP, which should be announced during August. That, plus more positive vibes about Leopard and the flash market, are going to send AAPL toward another spike in late summer or early autumn.

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