Apple is down 1.5% pre-market and comfortably back below its 50DMA on a top-line (and notably activations) miss from AT&T among other anxiety-inducing sentiment this morning. Perhaps what is really providing all the performance anxiety is the extreme expectations that are piled upon this greater-than-bellwether stock that has become the market. As Bloomberg's chart-of-the-day notes, Apple needs to surpass estimates by a wider margin than most of its peers in the S&P 500 in order to satisfy investors - if history is any guide. On an adjusted per-share basis, profits have beaten estimates by about 19% on average over the past seven years - a true under-promise over-deliver strategy. As Colin Gillis of BGC Partners notes, "Apple will need to smash records to keep momentum" as surpassing the $9.98/share by 20% is an impressive feat indeed as they point out that seven of the nine times Apple's shares have fallen the day after earnings has been when earnings beat by less than 20%. Performance anxiety indeed.
[3]
And AAPL is stumbling once again this morning...
[4]