Apple Profit Soars 94%, Stock Up 7%

Last Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average — the benchmark stock index of America’s blue chip companies – closed above 14,000 for the first time since the financial meltdown sent the U.S. economy into the worst crisis in decades. The continued resurgence of the U.S. auto industry and growing optimism about the overall economy helped propel the Dow above the psychologically important 14,000 point level. The surging Dow is an indication of the increasing financial health of the largest American companies, a bright spot in an otherwise shaky U.S.

For years, Apple consistently beat Wall Street expectations, not only because the company habitually low-balled its financial projections, but also because it was growing at a rate and scale that was virtually unprecedented in the history of corporate America. It appears those days are over. For the third consecutive quarter, Apple, the world’s largest technology company, fell short of analyst estimates, sending the company’s stock down a whopping 10% in after-hours trading, wiping out nearly $50 billion in shareholder value.

For years, Apple consistently beat Wall Street expectations, not only because the company habitually low-balled its financial projections, but also because it was growing at a rate and scale that was virtually unprecedented in the history of corporate America. It appears those days are over. For the third consecutive quarter, Apple, the world’s largest technology company, fell short of analyst estimates, sending the company’s stock down a whopping 10% in after-hours trading, wiping out nearly $50 billion in shareholder value.

Tech titan Apple reported a 24% increase in quarterly profit Thursday, but that figure failed to meet the sky-high expectations of Wall Street analysts. Sales of the company’s iPad tablet device fell short of analyst forecasts, as many consumers held off buying in anticipation of the new iPad Mini, which was released earlier this week. But now that the product has arrived to the market, along with the iPhone 5, which was introduced on Sept. 21, the holiday quarter is shaping up to be a monster for Apple.

Dr. Stephen Leeb submits:Earnings season is in full force, and the market’s daily moves can be dictated by individual companies’ successes and failures. Apple (AAPL), the S&P 500’s second-largest stock by market cap, is one such company.

In what may be very disturbing news for the AAPL-borg collective and the broader Hotel AAPLfornia, WSJ is reporting that Apple is working on a lower-end iPhone, a move which it dubs "a big shift in strategy as its supremacy in smartphones has slipped." To call this a big shift is a major understatement: no longer will Apple have the premium, ultra-luxury, aspirational product cache, which for a broad selection of its customers was the primary reason to keep buying iteration after iteration of the company's releases and lining up in droves around the block on release day.

A lot of normal people are looking at Apple's earnings results and asking themselves a pretty reasonable question: "What exactly is the problem here?"

By Stephen Rosenman:Apple (AAPL) and Monster (MNST): Could any two companies be more different? Unless you're guzzling Monster while surfing the web on your iPad, there's very little to tie the two together. Volume - volume - everywhere: Each sold 160 million units in 2011