Apple didn't grow nearly as fast as HP and Dell during the quarter. Of course AAPL is down.

U never buy a stock when its near its high .. Buy low sell high . And yes by the time u heard it was a good buy on CNBC its too late . its a pump and dump at that point.

Can't believe we have to teach people to buy low and sell high here. What's night, telling people how to tie their shoelaces?

in the stock market. It is based on the whim of the masses. It is impossible to explain how a company can be strong and healthy, post large gains, show growth and have growth potential like Apple, yet the stock goes down 1 whole point. The stock markets are controlled by masses of idiots like the one who said that it "has more than one mouse button". If you're smart, you'll invest in something else.

My lesson : stock market has never and probably will never be based on fact, rather fiction and the fact that Apple is always going out of business so why give them a break!

The previous poster had it right, buy on rumor, sell on news. The stock price of Apple climbed several dollars before the conference call this year. Most was probably on speculation about the results. And don't believe what First call says. They have expectations, but there's also the 'whisper' numbers, how much some analysts are hoping for. During the course of the conference call, the CFO talks about the prospects for the next quarter (these are only forward looking statements and not meant to be a guarantee of being accurate). These estimates get updated during the quarter. But it doesn't matter what Apple says. They could be saying "We estimate $40 million in profit for the quarter", coming out with $63 sounds great, but if the analysts were kind of hoping for $80, then, well, they'll dump the stock.

My best advice (and you can look at the historical record) is to buy several weeks before a MW show, and buy several weeks before earnings announcement (always the third wednesday after the end of the quarter), and then sell the day of the event/announcement (but NOT AFTER, BEFORE!!!).

The Macworld tip hopefully will no longer work. It used to work because all you MacHeads always demanded great things at the Keynote, so they always held off to announce at the keynote (why the price always drops is because you people are also never satisfied with what's announced - ever. You always want MORE.). Now they're doing a more "announce throughout the year" plan (like the precious new G5s you all were whining about not being announced at MW will probably be announced within the next 6 weeks, and then you all will whine questioning "Why didn't they announce this stuff in January at MW?", just like you did last year when they updated the MDD G4s at the end of January). So, stick with buying before announcements.

BTW, a friend of mine trades professionally, and like 6 months ago, she bought Oracle right before the announcement. Oracle had nothing but positive things to say, everything was better than expected, and the next quarter was announced to be better than the current quarter, and it still lost a dollar a share in short order.

Apple's stock price always jumps up a day or so before earnings report or MacWorld, and then drops back after the report or after the conference regardless of results.

Especially considering that Intel just reported higher profit than Apple had in revenue.

"Especially considering that Intel just reported higher profit than Apple had in revenue."

Right. 'Our school club raised $4000 selling lemonade at football games this year, but that's not so impressive, considering that Coca-Cola reported a profit of $900 million.*' ;)

Apple isn't Intel or Microsoft or IBM or any other company. Yes, a larger market share would be nice, but it doesn't NEED to be that big to still be a profitable company and provide valuable technology to its customers.

(* - figures only estimated. ;) )

Geez, I can't believe we have to teach people to buy low and sell high here as basic investing. What's next, telling people how to tie their shoelaces? Go watch Oprah if you need help with your lives.

Gotta love all you accounting dweebs with your slide rules. Who the f**k cares about stocks? Doesn't anybody work for money anymore?

so .. u keep ur money under ur pillow or somthing ? or do u collect 2% in ur checking account ?

dont you know by now that most of the people HATE apple?

DJ Phase writes "Warp Records, an independent label for electronic music (featuring artists such as Aphex Twin, Autechre, and Boards of Canada), has made their entire back catalog available thru Bleep, a new digital download service. Individual tracks are $1.35 for those of us in the USA, with EPs and full albums in the $4 to $10 price range. You can download Aphex Twin's rare, groundbreaking Hangable Auto Bulb EP for $4.29. To quote from the FAQ: 'We are at present the only store to offer very high quality MP3 files,' and 'Bleep music has no DRM or copy protection built in. We believe that most people like to be treated as customers and not potential criminals'."

SALES OF PCs rose sharply in the fourth calendar quality, according to figures provided by IDC and Gartner.
Both agree that shipments rose by around 15%, although the value of PCs is way below previous years because of aggressive price drops.

IDC said 44.6 million units were shipped in Q4, while Gartner's figures were only slightly different at 48 million PCs.

Dell stayed at number one in the US, trouncing HP with a 30.2% share while HP had 21.7% of the market.

But it seems that while Dell is doing real well in the US home market, HP is doing better selling its machines worldwide.

The figures don't only apply to desktop PCs, but include notebooks too.

Apple has been deleting messages on their boards that reference the ibook logic board failures. Simply unacceptable. If you have been affected, call Apple, voice your concerns. I have contacted the Florida SAO reference this and they are looking into it.

Florida along with other states have laws which protects consumers against products with known defects. While some may say it can't be determined if they know about this, that is bogus. They do know about the problem, as I found out by talking with the local Mac Center, but are obviously trying to ignore it.

This problem is far more prevailant than the "spots" problem on the powerbook 15", yet still goes un-acknowledged.

Nothing will get done until ibook owners stand up and make themselves heard.

This isn't an isolated issue as I have counted the posts throughout the web and this problem is noted everywhere.

Something can be done. Contact you local Consumer Affairs org, media consumer reporters, write the webmasters and writers of the mac sites.

Believe me, they didn't want to admit the G3/ OS X incompatabilty, nor the G3 powerbook adapter problem, but by pressure they were forced to do the right thing.

Believe me, they didn't want to admit the G3/ OS X incompatabilty, nor the G3 powerbook adapter problem, but by pressure they were forced to do the right thing.

What G3/OS X incompatibility problem? Or do you mean that stupid a** whine that some old G3s didn't support OpenGL or some such nonsense. That was a crappy nuisance suit and nothing else. You'll notice it didn't force Apple to actually fix the so-called incompatibility.

DJ Phase writes "Warp Records, an independent label for electronic music (featuring artists such as Aphex Twin, Autechre, and Boards of Canada), has made their entire back catalog available thru Bleep, a new digital download service. Individual tracks are $1.35 for those of us in the USA, with EPs and full albums in the $4 to $10 price range. You can download Aphex Twin's rare, groundbreaking Hangable Auto Bulb EP for $4.29. To quote from the FAQ: 'We are at present the only store to offer very high quality MP3 files,' and 'Bleep music has no DRM or copy protection built in. We believe that most people like to be treated as customers and not potential criminals'."

Well, first, what does this have to do with Apple's profit. Second, sure they can release it in non-drm format. Too bad most of the music is probably c***. Third, a "groundbreaking" album, is that because copies were used to dig holes for new septic systems?

Hey dumbass, stop posting the same f****** thing in all the news threads. Go sell crazy somewhere else, we're all stocked up.

Got that PT?

"Both agree that shipments rose by around 15%, although the value of PCs is way below previous years because of aggressive price drops."

Where are Apple's aggressive price drops? I hate people who say "Oh, I still run an Apple IIc and look at those PC people upgrading every two years."

If you can upgrade you Mac every two years, would you not do it? Duh.