http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-01-23/surveying-wreckage-aapl-plummets-january-2012-lows-and-still-going

Surveying The Wreckage; AAPL Plummets To January 2012 Lows And Still Going

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/23/2013 18:01 -0500

Blackrock

AAPL's after-hours loss in market cap is greater than the market cap of one BlackRock, Starbucks, Target, Costco, or Nike. Down almost 9% from yesterday's close, AAPL is trading down to January 2012 levels (off 35% from its highs) and is now notably less capitalized than the entire European banking system. Of course, this has had serious consequences for the major indices that are trading after-hours (and futures). Futures traded down to the day-session lows before closing but QQQ are now trading at 6-day lows in after-hours...and as S&P futures reopen they are gapping down a little more.

QQQ...

After the initial spike (thank you Johnny-5), AAPL is now getting ugly ready to test under $460 handle...

which has pulled AAPL down to January 2012 levels... notice the difference in volumes from the upside when we were last here - compared to the downside - there appears plenty of sellers left.. and the $443 to $30 gap looks like it will get filled...

and just as AAPL implied vol has been compressed with the rest of the market - we would expect a reaction tomorrow when we open - and for all those downside call sellers - happy to 'buy' the stock 'cheap' at lower prices if called away - enjoy...

Which might help explain the systemic compression in vol recently... as complacency in the AAPL options skew remained extremely high...

and AAPL is now well below (widest gap since August 2011) the market cap of European banks...(even lower now after-hours)

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-01-23/aapl-meets-eps-misses-revenues-fails-impress-line-iphone-sales-total-cash-grows-1371

AAPL Meets EPS, Misses Revenues, Fails To Impress With In Line iPhone Sales, Total Cash Grows To $137.1 Billion

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/23/2013 17:05 -0500

The most anticipated earnings release of the quarter has come and it has been a dud, at least judging by the market's expectations and its response. Because while EPS beats just barely (a far cry from the epic EPS beats of Steve Jobs days) coming at $13.81 on expectations of a $13.53 print, revenue outright missed, coming at $54.5 billion on expectations of a $54.9 billion Q1 2013 result. Furthermore, fears about profit margins were proven correct, with total gross profit coming in at $21.1 billion, which alas was 38.6% of revenue, well below the vaunted 40% threshold (as a reference margin was 44.7% a year ago, and 40.0% a quarter ago). And finally, the breakdown by components in the iPhone 5 release quarter was just, well,meh.

iPhone sold: 47.8 million vs 47.8 sales expected, right in line with consensus, and a far cry from the Gene "Channel Checks" Munster 50 million+ handle

iPads sold: 22.9 million, just above the 22.4 million expected, but offset by

Macs sold just 4.1 million, well below the 5.1 million expected.

The guidance did not help, with AAPL seeing Q2 2013 revenue of $41-$43 billion while Wall Street was hoping for a $45.5 billion number. At this point AAPL is hardly sandbagging as it used to do under Jobs, while gross margin is expected to be 37.5% and 38.5%. It was 47.4% in Q2 2012.

The one bright spot was total cash and investments which rose by $16 billion in the quarter to a record $137.1 billion, however now that the company is dividending some $2.65/share absent the kind of record growth everyone used to expect, will hardly grow at this pace in perpetuity.

The bigger problem for Apple now is that the coolness factor has shifted to Samsung, and that increasing new product launches will merely cannibalize from future sales, as well as further deteriorate the coolness factor of a company where one could buy a product for one year and be set. Needless to say a 3-4 month product cadence would be suicide for Apple.

Finally, the biggest problem, naturally, is that absent some new revolutionary "must need" product that fills an unmet niche, i.e., the Steve Jobs genius shining through at least once more, the growth dream is absolutely over.

The relevant charts:

Revenues:

Margins:

Product Sales:

and total cash:

and the price behavior after-hours -(note the initial spike before taking out the year's lows)...

and all the analysts...

And why is there a Hedge Fund exodus after hours? Here's why: