Wall Street has started to pick at the details of Apple’s (AAPL) September 12 iPhone event. And it’s not liking all the details on second (or third) look.
Apple’s shares finished down 0.86% today, September 14. Apple has closed lower in all three trading sessions since the product announcement. Not massively but still… The stock closed at $161.50 on September 11 before the event. If you were thinking that Apple’s product news might light a fire under a market that seems determined to move mostly sideways, then the market reaction counts as a disappointment.
The biggest detail that has Wall Street fretting a bit is that Apple said on Tuesday that the new iPhone X model, you know the $999 model, won’t go on sale until November 3. That’s later than the usual September on-sale date for new iPhone models (and the September on-sale date for the iPhone 8 and 8Plus also announced on Tuesday.) Â That could–and that’s all it is right now, a “could”–put Wall Street’s earnings and revenue estimates for the December quarter at risk.
Of course, if the product is a success all that the later date would mean is that some sales would be shifted to the March quarter. That’s not a big deal except that Wall Street looks to the December quarter for blow out holiday shopping season sales from Apple.
Track Wall Street estimates on Apple carefully during the next few weeks to see if analysts start to lower their estimates for the December quarter. Lower earnings estimates would put more pressure on Apple shares as we head into earnings season for the September quarter.
Apple is scheduled to report September quarter earnings on October 24, relatively late in the earnings season. Wall Street is forecasting earnings of $1.88 share on revenue of %50.90 billion for the quarter. That would vibe up from $1.67 a share in the second quarter on $45.4 billion in revenue.
Apple is a member of my long-term 50 Stocks portfolio.
