Before the bell: Futures lower as retail sales data rolls inApple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) will have to recover from yesterday's announcement of a $200 price cut on the iPhone. Analysts may now have to adjust models and maybe even price targets, although some, like Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray, think it's the right strategy. In the mean time, Apple will also have to deal with the wrath of the first adopters, the ones who ran to get the iPhone on the 29th of June, stood in line for hours and paid $200 more. If you ask me, Apple stands to alienate quite a few of its fan base, the ones who did buy the iPhone for $599.
Steve Jobs, in a Q&A in USA Today, pretty much said too bad to those customers. As per costs and iPhone sales projections being on track, he claims that "we're pretty good on the costs side. [...] We think we're on track for those kind of numbers."
Retail sales:
- Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) reported a 3.1% increase in August same-store sales, or 3% including the impact of fuel. Analysts, on average, had expected same-store sales to rise 1.5%. WMT shares are up 2.7% in premarket trading.
- Saks Inc. (NYSE: SKS) reported an 18.2% increase in same-store sales, beating the 9.2% analysts had expected.
- Nordstrom Inc. (NYSE: JWN) reported a 6.6% increase in August same-store sales, also ahead of the 6.3% estimate.
- Limited Brands Inc. (NYSE: LTD) reported a 1% increase in August same-store sales, lower than the 1.4% increase analysts had expected.
- Ann Taylor Stores Corp. (NYSE: ANN) reported a 2.9% increase in August same-store sales, higher than the 1.9% expected.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
9-06-2007 @ 10:16PM
bcosor said...
Short Apple's stock. I am a business owner who had just started considering switching our company back to Apples after leaving them before. But see how little respect and the overwhelming greed of Mr. Jobs, he can rot in IT hell. His stuff is good, but not good enough to make me put up with him. Short the stock.
9-06-2007 @ 11:36AM
Jude said...
This is the second time since June that the stock has plummeted over 6 points. Just when things were getting back to happy, Steve makes this announcement. He could have waited a month. It probably would have not crashed the stock. As an investor I think the timing was off.