WebRadio Decibel Amsterdam: Lion's AppleWatch

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 15:49:06 GMT

Impatient? Here's where we're at now:

Confused? Read this

'What if?' Planning for an Unpredictable Market.

What if this is just a bear market rally and we tumble another 30, 40, 50%?

What if the economy has bottomed, but things don’t really get better for years?

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 21:52:12 GMT

Update on the Pesky Trading Range in Apple AAPL

I’ve received a few requests to update the chart of Apple (AAPL) which remains trapped within a multi-month sideways trading range.

Let’s take a look at the current daily chart and note the levels to watch for a breakout, along with trading strategies while price remains trapped in the range.

I last updated Apple (AAPL)’s chart on July 13th with the post:

“The Support Shelf and Trading Range to Watch in Apple AAPL” (below)

… which remains true to this day as price continued to trade within that range and bounce off the ’support shelf.’

What now? Not much is different!

We still have key overhead resistance at $265, and a price breakout above $265 sends the upper target immediately to retest the 2010 high at $275 – a $10 potential quick play.

There are two main levels of price support to watch, and they come in at the $245 and $240 levels as indicated with horizontal lines.

There’s nothing complex to the analysis – there doesn’t need to be. These are the levels that traders are watching (and trading) very closely, and a breakout through the upper resistance or down through lower support will certainly grab traders’ attention and positions.

However, while price remains “trapped” within the trading range between $245 and $265, the active trader can play “fade” trades or “range” trades within the context of a price test of the resistance at $265 and at the support at $245, placing a relatively close stop just beyond these levels in the event that price does break out.

In essence, if you’re putting on a trading position in Apple right now for anything longer than a day-trade, you’re essentially making a bet that price will hold these support or resistance levels and remain within the range (giving you profit if that’s true), or break out of the range, playing the breakout and range expansion move that will give you profit if price ejects from the range.

Monitor the price chart closely if trading within this range.

The earlier post from July 13th below:

The Support Shelf and Trading Range to Watch in AAPL

Jul 13, 2010: 12:46 PM CST

Apple Inc (AAPL) frequently receives a great deal of media attention on their recent iPhone and iPad gadgets.

However, their stock has been stagnating in a trading range between$240 and $270 since May.

There is a critical support area – particularly from the weekly chart – that traders should be keenly aware of, so let’s see these levels and the bigger picture with Apple’s stock.

First, the daily trading range:

As the daily chart shows, Apple has a clear overhead resistance boundary at the $265 per share level, despite the ‘bull trap’ spiking up to $275. .

Thus, Apple bulls have their alerts set at the $265 level as the upside breakout level to punch through.

The lower boundary actually is rising, as seen in the ascending trendline, which will make more sense as you view the weekly chart.

Volume has trailed lower during the consolidation phase, but given that it’s summer and stocks in general exhibit lower participation/volume during a trading range, this is nothing to be concerned with yet.

Remember that in a trading range, moving averages matter less, so look to the trendlines as more important indicators.

Now, let’s see why the lower trendline is rising and what makes that very important going forward:

Surprise! The stock is supporting exactly as expected on the rising 20 week EMA within the context of a rising uptrend.

As long as that continues to happen, Apple bulls can rest easily, expecting higher prices yet to come.

However, one should not have blinders or bias with any stock, so it’s worthwhile to highlight the negative momentum divergence that undercut the recent high as seen above.

That’s bearish. However, divergences are just conditions – price (and supply/demand) is key.

So, the structure and trend remains up, but traders/investors need to focus very closely going forward on the rising 20 EMA, currently situated at $244 per share.

If sellers push price under $240, we would expect a deeper retracement, perhaps all the way back to the rising 50 week EMA at $220, which would break price downwards from the daily trading range as seen above.

Those are your parameters to watch going forward: A break under $240 is a very bearish situation, though anything less than that keeps price in the prevailing uptrend, and a break above $265 then to new highs beyond $275 ($280 to be conservative) gives investors once again the ‘all clear’ in this stock.

Until then, watch the developing structure very closely.

Corey Rosenbloom, CMT

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 13:03:50 GMT

Again we strongly suggest you read this post, we believe we see this scenario playing out now.

So do we buy today? - We KNOW Apple's Q3 earnings will be great and the stock could/should jump. OR are the forces of technical analysis, a greedy market and sh*tloads of FUD greater and will we be forced to touch AAPL's 200 MA (now at $ 222,83) before the road to new all time highs can be continued in the 2nd half of 2010...?

Today: AAPL Q3 earnings - after the bell

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), the maker of the iPhone and iPad, will likely see some volatility, as the company will be reporting its quarterly corporate results today after the close. Analysts expect profit to jump on strength of the iPad and iPhone 4 sales. Analysts on average expect the company to report a profit of $3.07 per share on revenue of $14.62 billion; a year ago Apple reported a profit of $2.01 a share and revenues of $8.34 billion. In particular Oppenheimer expects Apple to post very strong second quarter results, but worry that the wave of negative publicity surrounding the new iPhone's wireless reception will continue to pressure its shares and potentially impact sales. The firm maintained its Outperform rating, but trimmed estimates and target to $330 from $345. Apple shares fell more than 1% in pre-market trading.

Sat, 03 Jul 2010 10:49:40 GMT

Short film shot and edited with iMovie on iPhone 4 (with video)

"It's easy to see how the iPhone 4's high-definition 1280x720 video would be a handy feature. It's an entirely different thing to see just how impressive it can be in the right hands," Stephen Shankland reports for CNET.

"In this case, those hands belong chiefly to Michael Koerbel and Anna Elizabeth James, students at the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts, who wrote a short video called 'Apple of My Eye,'" Shankland reports. "Koerbel recorded it with an iPhone 4, and James edited it on the same hardware with Apple's new iMovie app--all in less than 48 hours."

Direct link via Vimeo: "Apple of My Eye" - an iPhone 4 film - UPDATE: Behind the scenes footage included

iOS users (or anyone wanting superior HTML5 picture quality), use the direct link to watch the video sans Flash on Vimeo's site.

Markets at the crossroads

...wanna see something really scary...? What Will Markets Do in the Near Term? and: what this could mean to AAPL

Fri, 02 Jul 2010 11:50:54 GMT

Rumors, bashing, fake emails... that's what happens when you sell almost 2 million smartphones in 2 days... ;)

Apple says Steve Jobs emails on iPhone 4 reception were faked

A top Apple spokesperson has emphatically denied that Steve Jobs was the author of a series of comments in an email exchange regarding iPhone 4 reception.

The comments, published earlier today by Boy Genius Report, attributed a series of email-based replies to Jobs, including the responses:

"No, you are getting all worked up over a few days of rumors. Calm down."
"You are most likely in an area with very low signal strength."
"You may be working from bad data. Not your fault. Stay tuned. We are working on it."
"Retire, relax, enjoy your family. It is just a phone. Not worth it."

After the report was picked up and spread by various blogs, BGR corrected it, saying the last line was actually written by the customer, and not Jobs.

Shortly after the edit was made, Philip Elmer-DeWitt of the Fortune Apple 2.0 blog reported that a top Apple public relations spokesperson, speaking on the record, "emphatically denied" that Steve Jobs "was the author of any of these statements."

AppleInsider had previously reported that the source of the email exchange had originally offered the emails as a story, "for sale," without asking for a specific price.

The incident highlights an emerging trend where blog sites quickly publish alleged email conversations with Apple's chief executive under "exclusive" headlines designed to attract attention, with little or no effort made to either verify or or qualify the emails as potentially fake.

Many reports of email-based exchanges describe "verifying email headers," which is a completely unreliable method of determining the legitimacy of a purported exchange. Email headers are trivial to fake, and even a real email exchange could be edited afterward without any indication in the email headers or elsewhere.

Fri, 02 Jul 2010 11:03:03 GMT

WE REPEAT (from June 7): Thinking of buying (more) AAPL? You should, it's going well over 300. But you may want to wait for a lower entry...
Read carefully, Applewatch thinks this scenario is likely to happen in the coming days/weeks...

AAPL-Short term 'Sell' alert on APPLE

Global Chart Analysis has issued a short term sell alert on apple.

So far Apple is showing an unfavorable market response to their new iPhone launch and it looks like the ipad excitement may have run it’s course over the short term as well. Apple may also face an antitrust suit with their advertising approach which could ignite even more profit taking. We should also mention the recent security breach on their new ipads which affected 110,000 ipads. Yes these should all be short term issues for apple and nothing they can’t take care of, but we see these issues taking the upside momentum out of the stock and potentially knocking the stock down as much as 20%. This profit taking could be fast and aggressive so those shorter term holders should beware.

Click to enlarge chart

On the technical side
We are seeing increasingly aggressive selling in AAPL. AAPL has now broken multiple support levels including its 21 and 50 day moving averages as well as its bullish wedge. This sell-off has some heavy volume to go along with it so this sell-off is for real.

What to look at now:
We do see AAPL as short term stretched to the downside, so we forecast a run back up into its 50 day moving average level before finding another wave of sellers which should then force the stock lower. If AAPL is strong enough to retake and hold its 50 day moving average level, we would take it off our 'Sell' watch list. If this level can't be retaken and instead turns into resistance, we will officially move AAPL from our sell watch list and move it to our 'Sell' list.

Price Target:
We see AAPL selling off to the $225-$231 level followed by the $211 level. There is also the potential for AAPL to retest its flash crash lows of $199. This would be close to 20% move lower, where it should finally find plenty of support.

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 13:07:41 GMT

Apple now worth more than Microsoft and Dell combined

Shares of Apple Inc. (AAPL) closed today at $269.00, putting the company's market value at $244.77 billion. Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) currently has a market value of $219.10 billion. Dell Inc. (DELL) has a market value of $25.32 billion. Add them both together and Apple is worth more than Microsoft and Dell combined, $244.77 billion vs. $242.42 billion, respectively. Now, let that headline percolate around in your brain and roll it off your tongue a few times - it's really quite satisfying. Congrats, Apple, for a job well done! Congrats, Jobs, for an Apple done well!

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 16:23:11 GMT

Buy? Sell? It all depends on the market now, but here's some TA for AAPL:

Technical analysis of Apple Inc. (AAPL) stock for June 22, 2010

Apple Inc. (AAPL) Support & Resistance Levels - 6/22/10

Resistance Levels: $275, $280, $290

Support Levels: $267, $260, $255

http://stockcharts.com - Chart

Apple Inc. (AAPL) hit a new 52 week high at $279 and then had a sharp reversal on Monday. Apple could be setting up to pull back to the 10 & 50 day moving average between $255-$260 and if we see this, the stock would be a buy. I would get even more aggressive if I saw Apple Inc drop below $250.

For more Technical Analysis - Go Here

Interesting DT-forum comments comments here

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 22:53:47 GMT

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 16:29:48 GMT

Live coverage of Apple CEO Steve Jobs' WWDC 2010 Keynote Address

Links for sites planning live coverage include:

It all starts today at the times below:

07:00AM - Hawaii
10:00AM - Pacific
11:00AM - Mountain
12:00PM - Central
01:00PM - Eastern
06:00PM - London
07:00PM - Paris
09:00PM - Moscow
02:00AM - Tokyo (June 8th)

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 16:12:35 GMT

Full interview of Apple's Steve Jobs at D8 now available Before Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs takes the stage today in San Francisco, Calif., at the Worldwide Developers Conference, readers can watch his lengthy interview from last week's D8 conference in its entirety.

Fri, 28 May 2010 19:39:51 GMT

Merrill Lynch ups AAPL target to $325

Cites the strength of the iPhone, demand for the iPad and expanding gross margins

Click to enlarge. Source: BofA/ML

Bank of America/Merrill Lynch's Scott Craig issued a bullish note to clients Friday in which he raised his estimates for Apple's (AAPL) third quarter revenue and earnings and upped his share price target -- from $300 to $325.

"We believe multiple tailwinds exist for iPhone demand," he wrote, "including strong uptake at AT&T (continued) and international growth (expansion to multi- carrier and with existing carriers). ... We raise our iPad estimates on better than expected demand (with lengthy lead times) and based on channel checks in Asia. Also, we believe consensus estimates meaningfully underestimate Apple's gross margin potential (not overly unusual)."

Craig is the fourth major analyst this month to raise Apple's price target in advance of the company's third fiscal quarter, which ends June 26. The others were Morgan Stanley's Katy Huberty (to $310), Standard & Poor's Clyde Montevirgen ($300) and Sterne Agee's Vijay Rakesh ($300).

Most analysts wait until after the company's earnings report to let their clients know where they think the stock is headed. According to AAPLinvestor.net, which tracks these things, 19 analysts raised their Apple price targets on April 21, the day after the company's Q2 earnings report.

Below the fold: A snapshot of AAPLinvestor's analyst ratings list. Note: this version doesn't yet include the news from Merrill Lynch. Click here for the latest.

Company	Analyst	Date	Rating	Target
BOA/Merril Lynch	Scott Craig	28 May 2010	Buy	$325
Morgan Stanley	Katy Huberty	24 May 2010	Overweight	$310
Standard & Poor	Clyde Montevirgen	20 May 2010	Strong Buy	$300
Sterne Agee	Vijay Rakesh	18 May 2010	Buy	$300
Piper Jaffray	Gene Munster	17 May 2010	Overweight	$323
Kaufman Bros.	Shaw Wu	11 May 2010	Buy	$320
Barclays Capital	Ben Reitzes	7 May 2010	Overweight	$315
*RBC Capital Markets	Mike Abramsky	21 Apr 2010	Outperform	$350
Deutsch Bank	Chris Whitmore	21 Apr 2010	Buy	$350
Societe Generale	Vincent Rech	21 Apr 2010	Buy	$350
Pacific Crest	Andy Hargreaves	21 Apr 2010	Outperform	$330
Canaccord Adams	Peter Misek	21 Apr 2010	Buy	$325
Morgan Keegan	Tavis McCourt	21 Apr 2010	Outperform	$325
Macquarie	Richard Choe	21 Apr 2010	Outperform	$325
Oppenheimer	Yair Reiner	21 Apr 2010	Outperform	$320
Citigroup	Richard Gardner	21 Apr 2010	Buy	$320
Thomas Weisel Partners	Doug Reid	21 Apr 2010	Overweight	$320
J. P. Morgan	Mark Moskowitz	21 Apr 2010	Overweight	$316
UBS	Maynard Um	21 Apr 2010	Buy	$315
Credit Suisse	Bill Shope	21 Apr 2010	Outperform	$315
Caris & Co.	Robert Cihra	21 Apr 2010	Buy	$310
Sanford Bernstein	Toni Sacconaghi	21 Apr 2010	Outperform	$300
Susquehanna	Jeffery Fidicaro	21 Apr 2010	Positive	$300
JMP Securities	Samuel Wilson	21 Apr 2010	Outperform	$290
BMO Capital Markets	Keith Backman	21 Apr 2010	Outperform	$290
Goldman Sachs	David Bailey	21 Apr 2010	Neutral	$270
Needham & Co	Charles Wolf	9 Apr 2010	Buy	$280
Broadpoint AmTech	Brian Marshall	9 Apr 2010	Buy	$280
CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets	Steven Fox	5 Apr 2010	Buy	$280
Exane BNP Paribas	-	31 Mar 2010	Outperform	$300
First Global		4 Feb 2010	Market Perform
Argus	Wendy Abramowitz	27 Jan 2010	Buy	$245
Gabelli	Robert Haley	26 Jan 2010	Buy
Hapoalim Securities		25 Jan 2010	Buy	$295
Hudson Square	Daniel Ernst	22 Jan 2010	Buy	$250
Calyon Securities		7 Dec 2009	Buy	$260
FTN Equity	Bill Fearnley	21 Sep 2009	Neutral	$180
William Blair	Ralph Schackart	3 Sep 2009	Outperform
Collins Stewart	Ashok Kumar	3 Jun 2009	Buy	$170
Cross Research	Shannon Cross	23 Apr 2009	Buy	$160
Think Equity	Vijay Rakesh	23 Apr 2009	Buy	$150
Calyon Securities	Shelby Seyrafi	24 Feb 2009	Underperform	$90

Thu, 27 May 2010 14:29:27 GMT

J.P. Morgan Reiterates Overweight Rating on Apple Inc.

J.P. Morgan is out with an analyst note this morning that is reiterating their Overweight rating for Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL). They also have a $316.00 price target on AAPL.

JPM analysts said that they "think that Apple increasingly will penetrate the "Target Zone" of the midrange PC segment and at the International level. As a result, we expect Mac to keep Apple on track to achieving 20%-plus growth, and this profile should help re-rate Apple's valuation multiples higher over time."

They also said "we believe Apple should be able to drive increasing penetration of the International marketInternational market. Even if the company only gets half way overseas to where its market share is in the U.S., the revenue opportunity in the Target Zone measures in the billions."

"We believe that Apple's Mac business has plenty of revenue growth left in the tank," said JPM analysts.

According to J.P. Morgan, "Apple remains our top pick in IT Hardware, and we believe the growth story has plenty of staying power. Long-term catalysts include:

increasing iPad adoption with next-generation product improvements,
expanded International penetration of the Mac,
iPhone penetration of China and additional carriers in the U.S.,
incremental margin improvements as the iPod music device's relative contribution eases, and
new entry into other categories such as mobile advertisingmobile advertising or search."

Thu, 27 May 2010 12:46:09 GMT

From MacDailyNews:

Apple surpasses Microsoft to become world's biggest tech company, second-most-valuable U.S. company

In one of the clearest signs yet of the renaissance that's finally putting a close to The Dark Age of Personal Computing, Apple Inc. (AAPL) has overtaken Microsoft (MSFT) to become the second-most-valuable U.S. company.

Microsoft spent most of the trading day fending off Apple relentless assault [~] sometimes by excruciatingly small amounts - but, at approximately 2:15pm EDT, shares of Apple rose $4.35, or 1.78%, to $249.57, putting Apple's market value at $227.10 billion and finally overtaking Microsoft's which declined $0.20, or 0.77%, to 25.87, putting their market cap at $226.72 billion.

Watching it happen in real-time and then savoring the replay on 15-minute delay was doubly satisfying!

What I can't figure out is why he (Steve Jobs) is even trying (to be the CEO of Apple)? He knows he can't win. - Bill Gates, June 1998

Expect the companies to trade positions back and forth in the near term, but Apple should put the derivative Microsoft in their rearview mirror soon enough.

As per NYSE, the top five U.S. publicly-traded companies, based on full market values, are:

Exxon Mobil (XOM) - $283.06B

Apple (AAPL) - $227.10B
Microsoft (MSFT) - $226.72B
Wal-Mart (WMT) - $189.57B
Berkshire hathaway (BRKA) - $175.76B

MacDailyNews Take: Pop the corks! Congrats, Apple, on a job very, very, very well done!

One more thing... Boom!

Thu, 27 May 2010 12:23:53 GMT

AAPL now larger than MSFT in market cap

Update: AAPL closed the day at a market capitalization of $222.07B. Microsoft closed at $219.18B. Apple is now worth almost $3 billion more than Microsoft. Today was the day that Apple passed Microsoft in market cap for the first time since the early 90s. At the time of this writing, AAPL is worth over $1 billion more than MSFT and growing. We'll see later today if they can keep this lead and close out the day ahead.

Wed, 26 May 2010 12:57:40 GMT

Apple grabs 72% of Japan's smartphone market

Defying skeptics, iPhone sales tripled in the most recent quarter

2009 iPhone queue in Tokyo.

Apple (AAPL) has cracked Japan's tough smartphone market wide open, according to a report in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal. The evidence:

Apple sold 1.7 million iPhones in Japan, or 72% of all smartphones sold, in the fiscal year that ended March 31, according to Tokyo-based MM Research.
iPhone sales in Japan tripled in the latest quarter, while the rest of the country's handset market stagnated.
Softbank (SFT.F), the iPhone's exclusive carrier in Japan, has added new subscribers at nearly three times the pace of market leader NTT DoCoMo (DCM) and KDDI Corp. (DIP.F) since it began selling the device 2008.
Samsung (SAMS.L) and Research in Motion (RIMM) have failed to gain a foothold in the Japanese market, and Nokia (NOK) has all but pulled out.

The iPhone's success surprised local analysts, according to the Journal, because Japanese handsets are so sophisticated. Most come with push e-mail, advanced cameras, GPS, and digital television receivers. They also double as credit cards, train tickets and airline boarding passes.

"The iPhone is not as advanced in terms of hardware," Takeshi Natsuno, a former top executive at NTT DoCoMo., told the Journal, "but the user interface is something to behold."

Wed, 19 May 2010 20:17:24 GMT

Why Apple will accelerate

Most of us assume that Apple (AAPL) stock has been the darling of Wall Street on its big run over the last few years. The truth is just the opposite. Apple stock growth is doing a poor job of tracking the actual growth of the company. Such a disconnect creates a buying opportunity on this widely followed but severely misunderstood stock.

Two years ago Apple stock was trading at $187.62. Today the stock trades 34% higher at $252. Which segments of Apple have outgrown the 34%? Consider the following comparisons from the 2008 March quarter with the 2010 March quarter:

Revenue growth: 80%
Net Income growth: 192%
iPhone growth: 415%
Cash growth: 115%
iPod Touch growth: 63% YOY
Chinese revenue growth: over 200% YOY
iPad didn’t exist
iAd didn’t exist

The conclusion is that Apple stock will accelerate into each quarterly earnings release as it tries to keep pace with the company. Not only do Apple’s competitors struggle to keep up with Steve Jobs, but Apple stock can’t keep up either.

My forecast is that investors will make up the difference more quickly than the competition. The P will be racing to keep up with the E in the P/E ratio. The most amazing thing about Apple is that its growth is still accelerating. The next 18 month’s of earnings look primed to propel Apple to become the largest market cap stock in the world.

Mon, 17 May 2010 20:40:44 GMT

International bank switches from BlackBerry to Apple iPhone Standard Chartered, a British bank with nearly 75,000 employees in more than 70 countries, has switched its standard corporate communications device from RIM's BlackBerry to Apple's iPhone.

Sat, 15 May 2010 10:46:49 GMT

Apple may soon be the U.S.'s largest company Apple is suddenly America's third-largest company by stock market value...

Thu, 13 May 2010 17:07:21 GMT

Mac sales forecast to grow 20% on strong demand for new MacBook Pros Apple's recent MacBook Pro refresh and the newly launched iPad 3G are both strong sellers, industry and supply chain sources have told one Wall Street analyst, who believes Apple could see another quarter with more than 20 percent year-over-year growth in Mac sales.

Thu, 29 Apr 2010 11:11:03 GMT

Apple may debut new iPhone at June conference (AFP).

AFP - Apple is expected to formally debut its next-generation iPhone at a developers conference slated for the second week of June.

Thu, 29 Apr 2010 11:08:07 GMT

GOOGLE asked for it... Now Apple WILL enter the search business... And THIS is what it will look like:

How Apple will keep growing: entering the search business!

Apple gets closer to search, buys Siri for assistance.

Apple's shopping list for smaller technology companies seems pretty long right now, yesterday we hear of chip company, Intrinsity, and today we learn all about the purchase of mobile assistance firm, Siri....

Thu, 22 Apr 2010 19:42:30 GMT

... remember, ALL of these 'analysts' have been too conservative in the past. Also remember all targets below were set AFTER the earnings and AAPL's recent rally...

How high can AAPL go?

Analysts scramble to raise their price targets after Tuesday's record Q2 earnings report

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and after failing to predict Apple's (AAPL) performance in the quarter than ended March 27, all of Wall Street seemed to be looking at the company with new and more appreciative eyes.

More than two dozen analysts raised their price targets for Apple overnight, from as low as $240 to as high as $350.

The prize for the biggest jump goes to Macquarie's Phil Cusick, who went from $250 to $325, a 30% change of heart.

Below: Our full list. We'll add more as they come in.

Analyst	New	Old	% Change
Chris Whitmore, Deutsche Bank	$350	$325	7.7%
Mike Abramsky, RBC Capital	$350	$275	27.3%
Vincent Rech, Societe Generale	$350	$280	25.0%
Andy Hargreaves, Pacific Crest	$330	$300	10.0%
Piter Misek, Canaccord Adams	$325	$300	8.3%
Phil Cusick, Macquarie	$325	$250	30.0%
Gene Munster, Piper Jaffray	$323	$299	8.0%
Brian Marshall, Broadpoint Amtech	$320	$280	14.3%
Richard Gardner, Citigroup	$320	$300	6.7%
Doug Reid, Thomas Weisel	$320	$300	6.7%
Yair Reiner, Oppenheimer	$320	$285	12.3%
Mark Moskowitz, J.P. Morgan	$316	$305	3.6%
Ben Reitzes, Barclays Capital	$315	$300	5.0%
Shaw Wu, Kaufman Bros.	$315	$305	3.3%
Bill Shope, Credit Suisse	$315	$300	5.0%
Robert Cihra, Caris & Co.	$310	$300	3.3%
Scott Craig, Merrill Lynch	$300	$260	15.4%
Jeff Fidicaro, Susquehanna Financial	$300	$275	9.1%
Toni Sacconaghi, Sanford Bernstein	$300	$275	9.1%
Clyde Motevirgen, Standard & Poor	$295	$270	9.3%
Keith Bachman, BMO Capital	$290	$265	9.4%
Samuel Wilson, JMP Securities	$290	$260	11.5%
Katy Huberty, Morgan Stanley	$275	$250	10.0%
David Bailey, Goldman Sachs	$270	$240	12.5%

. . . .

Clients who actually pay these analysts for investment advice would probably appreciate getting the benefit of all this before — rather than after — Apple's earnings reports. That way, they might have participated in the rally that sent Apple shares soaring over $260 Wednesday...

The stock today traded (intraday) at an all-time high of $266.84