AAPL financial news roundup

By Michael Rose

There's a passel of AAPL financial tidbits from the past few days that merit review, on this Monday morning where Apple stock opened at 193.58, just $1.41 under the 52-week (and all-time) high of 194.99 hit on Friday. Forthwith:

  • RBC Capital and Bear Stearns analysts, last week, raised targets for Apple into the stratosphere. RBC's Mike Abramsky says $215 for a price expectation, with revenue estimates of $32.7B and $40.4B for the next two years. Andy Neff of BS is looking for $249, and sees retail feedback indicating higher product sales. Both analysts, in fact, see a big bump in Mac sales through the December quarter, countering Apple's guidance of a slight slip from Q3 to Q4. [via Barrons]
  • With regard to Apple's financial forecasting, Arik Hesseldahl at Business Week revisits the Q1 forecasts from September and asks if Apple guidance is still as conservative as Ann Coulter. Even though the numbers seemed very high at the time, the latest analyst reports are starting to make them seem more realistic.
  • The question of Apple's $15B nest egg was tackled by Fortune, Seeking Alpha and more late in the week. Should there be a dividend, a share buyback, or just a really, really big cookie jar under the world's largest mattress? On the acquisition front, the fan favorite seems to be a buyout of TiVo... could give a real boost to the flagging Apple TV 'hobby.'
  • CNBC joined the subnotebook rumor parade with a Jim Goldman 'trusted source' report suggesting that an Apple 'nanobook' could come in at a nigh-unbelievable $1500 price point, complete with solid state drive. The consensus on last night's talkcast was that this pricing seemed a trifle fantastical, but we'd all be thrilled to be wrong.
  • Our sister site BloggingStocks:AAPL has two interesting posts on the view of Apple from London's financial management community (spoiler: "Jolly good") and some cracks in the enterprise 'talk to the hand' attitude for iPhone use inside the corporate confines.

There'll be Apple financial news galore between now and Macworld, so if you see a story that strikes your fancy, by all means let us know.

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