Analysts Predict Apple Will Report Single-Digit Earnings Growth in 1Q 2014

Whatever it is the stock will go down.

I hope they can keep Icahn and his bandwagon buddies out of their business.

And I predict, no matter what happens, tech blogs will go into their usual "Apple is dead, all hail Google" nonsense.

Analysts lol

Oh no. Apple is doom. They only made $55 to $58 billion.

PROFITS ... the number that really matters to stakeholders.

Unless the subject is Amazon, then it seems to be just fine that they've never made money...

Apple will likely make shareholders cry tears of blood just like they usually do on earnings because of their insistence on hoarding every penny they make instead of using it to expand into new businesses. Only companies like Google and Amazon go up 10% to 15% on earnings because they're always looking out for their shareholders by trying to get every ounce of value out of the money they make.

Tim Cook makes me sick by smiling and giggling about how Apple did just peachy-dandy selling awesome products while the share price tanks.
Dammit, Cook, get a freaking clue. Wall Street absolutely hates Apple and especially you because you're not one-tenth of the man Steve Jobs was. Google's 3 Stooges of Schmidt, Page and Brin are tearing Apple a new butt canal day in and day out with Android which must be up to at least a hundred million new activations a day.

Geez dude your constant ranting is getting old. It's not Tim a Cook's fault that you bought high and got burned. If you think Google and Amazon are so freaking amazing, get out of Apple and put your money there instead. Just don't come crying when those bubbles burst.

Apple is DOOMED! :rolleyes:

Who cares?

On a side note: this whole obsession with continuous growth will eventually have to come to an end. Companies and countries nowadays always pretend like everyone involved is predestined to grow and everyone believes this cycle will go on forever. In recent years, economists have started to question this mindset and now increasingly say that we (companies, and even more so countries) WILL NOT be able to continue growth indefinitely. If you believe that the "economy needs to grow" you're hearing fitful thinking. Nothing more. Does is usually grow? Yes! Will this always be the case? NO!

A thought experiment: If we see real (not nominal) economic growth every year, we will all be driving Ferraris in 100 years. This is not going to happen. Period. It's mathematically impossible to grow forever. In theory, this shouldn't be a problem, but the way our economies and debts work is that they rely heavily on growth to help with employment problems and making debt more affordable.

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Previous Q1 was 54.5b so really anything less than 56b is flat after inflation. Will be interesting to see if they offer guidance for Q2. It could suggest if fresh produce is on the way or just yesterday's apple's repolished.

The funny thing is that Apple doesn't really care about their stock price. Of course they have to act like they feel bad for investors and they try to please them. Ultimately, it's the greedy and unrealistic investors who saw the iPod, iPhone, iPad and thought this trend would continue forever.

Apple makes great products. But they don't make many of them. If investors would realize this reality, then we would avoid this whole "apple is doomed" idiocy.

People keep saying Apple needs to do a big acquisition. Jim Cramer over at CNBC keeps pushing Apple to buy Twitter or Netflix. Can someone explain how Apple was able to become the most valuable publicly traded company in the world without a large scale acquisition? Apple's largest acquisition was NeXT for around $400M.

I'd rather see Apple spend their cash on the supply chain side and targeted acquisitions to fill areas of weakness. How often do large scale acquisitions work out that well anway? AOL Time Warner was a disaster. HP and Compaq pretty much too. I doubt Google's valuation is where it is today because they spent $12B on Motorola Mobility. And did Microsoft's acquisition of Skype really do anything for that stock?

I agree. As a shareholder, I'm happy to see Apple not senselessly flushing money down the toilet just because they can. At first I wasn't happy about Nest being bought by Google rather than Apple, but then I realized, $3.2 billion is a LOT of freaking money for a company that basically makes a thermostat with WiFi in it. Sure it's nice, but I don't think it's beyond Ive and team to create one that's equally as nice or even better. eg The moat isn't very wide or deep. Apple can move into that market if and when they decide the timing is right.

Exactly. The general feeling seems to be that Google bought Nest as a way of harvesting more data about users, and I think that has to be true at least in part to justify the price they paid. Google's product is big data. Apple's product is technology. I'd like to see Apple release a complete home automation product that blows away Nest and all the others, and for them to make a big part of their pitch that they aren't using it for harvesting data. Apple could really outflank Google on that point and I wish they'd start soon.