Investment "Logic"

Apple announced revenues of $84.3B, which was below the adjusted consensus of $83.97B and earnings just beat expectations of $4.17 by coming in at $4.18.  It's important to note that these estimates were adjusted down based upon the earnings miss notification that was provided at the beginning of the month.  However, it's equally important to note that it's not as bad as analysts were expecting.  When you get a preannouncement, the key certainly won't be the past numbers, as they've already set expectations there.  The key information is going to be more about the deeper details as well as the forward guidance and readthrough on the current quarter performance to date.  We'll get to all of that in this recap, but let's start with the deeper numbers on the Quarter. To start with, the cause of the poor performance in the quarter was related to iPhone sales - particularly in China.  As such, it's no surprise to hear that iPhone revenues were down 15% ...

On November 1, Apple announced it's fourth quarter results for fiscal year 2018.  Revenue rose twenty percent to $62.9B and earnings rose forty-one percent to $2.91.  Most important in the transforming Apple story is the continued growth of the services sector, which grew twenty-seven percent YoY.  This is important, because it's this services story which I believe will change how the stock is looked at and valued more as a consumer products company than a tech provider.  Services provides an ongoing revenue stream even if phone sales are choppy or peaking out.  That said, phone sales are still looking good on the revenue front as the company reported a 29% increase YoY and per-unit prices were higher than expected at $793, meaning the higher end phones were wildly sought after.  All of these numbers beat analyst expectations, but the headline numbers aren't what has driven the stock's action since the announcement. Forward guidance was pretty much in...

Oh how the times change so easily.  It's become apparent that the stock market of 2017 is gone and what has taken its place is one filled with uncertainty and volatility.  Repeatedly over the last number of weeks we face wild swings as our President tweets, aids calm fears, and new complications arise.  It's important to note that for the last month and a half, we've truly been in the grips of a macro environment where everything from Presidential Tweets, Fed statements, Jobs reports, and other extraneous political and macroeconomic news controls the markets.  The one thing that could potentially put some calm to the market - earnings season - only started on Friday and despite what was a strong showing out of our biggest banks, what started as strong gains were wiped out and met with losses as people got prepared for a weekend which included fears of us dropping missiles on Syria (it happened Friday night and then called a "complete success"), as well as fea...

Once again, it's been awhile since I've provided an update or completed missing quarterly reviews.  Time to put in some extra work and get caught up.  To start out with, my portfolio has been under performing the S&P 500 this year.  As of today, I'm just over 2% behind the S&P 500.  I'm finding this to be quite frustrating and am trying to figure out what/how/why that is the case after last year's over performance.  I have yet to figure out the solution, as many of these companies are still just as great as they always have been, but they've been out of favor in the market for the last couple months.  This is potentially a temporary thing and a test to my conviction in the holdings. That said, there are other factors to consider as well.  The US Dollar has leveled off and shown a little strength with the rise of interest rates and lack of similar actions in other reasons, for example.  And to top that off, Trump just elected Larry K...

A quarter late, I'm finally writing my first review of Apple quarterly earnings.  The company reported their fiscal first quarter of 2018 on Thursday beating on top and bottom lines.  The company reported revenues of $88.3B and earnings of $3.89.  This results in a solid beat of expectations on the top line of $86.48B and a slight beat on earnings expectations of $3.86.  These results culminate in the best quarter ever for earnings and revenue for the company.  All this said, not everything was seen as great or perfect in the quarter.  IPhone sold 1% less units than that compared a year ago and mac units were down 5%.  IPad sales were up 1%.  Services grew 18% year over year.  It's worth noting that all of these numbers are built off of the fact that there was one less week this fiscal year than last. This is the crux of where all of the chaos around this stock is based.  Essentially, it seems analysts were expecting some sort of "...

New year and it's time to get going on new weekly updates and a new batch of quarterly earnings reports.  Now that I've got the past year's review behind me, now it's time to start listening to fourth quarter and 2017 yearly earnings results.  We start on Tuesday when Citigroup announces their fourth quarter results.  Today, JP Morgan and Wells Fargo both reported.  There were significant tax losses and the trading divisions suffered because of low volatility.  There were also a fair amount of one-time charges,  which were expected to take advantage of tax loss benefits and other similar related events.  In general, the report was good for an institutional bank. NIM was higher and the forward outlook was postie, and with it, the bank stocks took off.  The markets will be closed on Monday for Martin Luther King Day, so Citi will be the next big bank report and I expect that we'll get another similar report and stock price results.  More s...