Joseph Bland on Premarket: Apple is green - 'Hi, PED. It would be interesting to poll the Apple 3.0 readership to learn the percentage of past or present Apple employees that are registered or frequent observers. The ones that are presently employed can contact you privately to retain their anonymity. Maybe worth asking in a story? Also, Apple News is giving “free” access to folks who aren’t yet paying members. That might give you a better sense of the size of your actual readership….'
on Premarket: Apple is green - '“Both” Each of Apple’s trillion-dollar milestones was propelled by a distinct combination of breakout product hardware cycles and surpassing Wall Street’s financial expectations. Here is the exact breakdown of the catalysts behind every milestone, including the specific earnings reports and product innovations that triggered the rallies. 1. $1 Trillion Milestone (August 2, 2018) • The Product Driver: The iPhone X. Wall Street was deeply skeptical of the iPhone X’s unprecedented $999 starting price tag. However, it completely redefined consumer spending habits, proving that users were willing to pay premium prices for edge-to-edge OLED screens and FaceID. • The Earnings Catalyst: Q3 2018 Financial Results. Two days prior to hitting the milestone, Apple reported a massive earnings beat. Revenue grew by 17% year-over-year to $53.3 billion, heavily driven by higher Average Selling Prices (ASPs) from the iPhone X, alongside a 31% surge in Services revenue. 2. $2 Trillion Milestone (August 19, 2020) • The Product Driver: Macs, iPads, and Wearables. While the iPhone remained a cash cow, the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic triggered an unprecedented global boom in remote work and digital learning. • The Earnings Catalyst: Q3 2020 Financial Results. In late July 2020, Apple shocked the market by posting a blowout quarter despite widespread retail store closures. Revenue rose 11% to $59.7 billion, with double-digit growth across iPad and Mac sales. The announcement of a 4-for-1 stock split during this report created immense retail investor enthusiasm, pushing the stock up over 10% in a matter of days. 3. $3 Trillion Milestone (January 3, 2022) • The Product Driver: The iPhone 13 lineup and custom M1 Apple Silicon chips. Apple’s transition away from Intel chips to its own in-house processors supercharged Mac sales. Concurrently, the iPhone 13 drove massive upgrade cycles, particularly in China. • The Earnings Catalyst: Q4 2021 Financial Results. Reported in late 2021, Apple capped off a fiscal year that generated over $365 billion in revenue. Investors flooded into the stock during the first trading session of 2022, viewing Apple as the ultimate safe-haven asset with massive free cash flow amid mounting macroeconomic uncertainty. 4. $4 Trillion Milestone (October 28, 2025) • The Product Driver: The iPhone 17 series and the ultra-thin iPhone Air. After years of incremental smartphone updates, the redesigned iPhone 17 lineup triggered a major hardware replacement cycle. This was further amplified by the deep integration of next-generation Apple Intelligence features natively inside the consumer ecosystem. • The Earnings Catalyst: Pre-Q4 2025 Earnings Run-up. Apple stock surged 13% throughout September and October. Institutional investors heavily bought into the stock ahead of the late-October earnings call, confident that global demand for AI-capable hardware in the U.S. and China would comfortably outpace supply. 5. $5 Trillion Milestone (July 28, 2026) • The Product Driver: Global iPhone 17 sales resilience and a new U.S. Device Leasing Program. Partnering with Klarna, Apple introduced consumer hardware leases starting at $17.99/month for iPhones. This heavily reduced upfront “sticker shock” and locked users into predictable, recurring hardware upgrade fees. • The Earnings Catalyst: Anticipation of Q3 2026 Financial Results. Apple’s stock staged a 25% year-to-date rally, crowning it the top performer of the “Magnificent Seven”. Wall Street aggressively favored Apple over competitors because the company avoided the costly, low-margin AI infrastructure cloud-spending war. Instead, its strong free cash flow and expanding high-margin Services revenue pushed shares to an intraday peak of $342.89 just days before the earnings release. ((Not bad for simply a hardware company that can’t innovate anymore..))'
on Why Goldman Sachs raised its Apple target - 'I expect the pace of growth in revenue from Apple-branded services such as AppleCare+, iCloud+, Apple One, Apple Creator Studio, etc. will continue to outpace revenue growth from the App Store. I believe this is in the best interests of Apple and the company’s shareholders.'
on Apple at $340.08: Second record close in as many days - '” But doesn’t a beat mean the stock will drop?” Depends on GUIDANCE and what investor expectations are for future earnings. Is that earnings report (history) an unsustainable one of, or does it have legs foretelling future earnings growth? Of all that’s discussed during earnings, the single most important item is GUIDANCE.'
on Apple at $340.08: Second record close in as many days - 'But doesn’t a beat mean the stock will drop?'
on Why Goldman Sachs raised its Apple target - 'Some thoughts. If Apple could use CXMT memory for non-US iPhone sales, that could be a head wind. Positive reports from the beta release of Apple Intelligence may also help push AAPL. Regardless of iPhone roll-out, the Fold will be a hit. And the usual suspects, short covering, momentum, etc.'
on Apple at $340.08: Second record close in as many days - '@Gregg: They say the trend is your friend. Although the folks who have shorted Apple in the past few months are probably covering and getting out of the way before earnings. Or not. My hunch is Apple will beat the Q-3 projections by Wall Street. Here are the numbers on the shorts: Short interest was (155.886) Million as of May 29, 2026. 3.384 Short interest was (144.248) Million as of June 15, 2026. 2.755 Short interest was (140.526) Million as of June 30, 2026. 1.732 Short interest was (146.547) Million as of July 15, 2026. 3.05'
on Horace Dediu has a cool new way to preview Apple earnings - 'Fred: You have good taste. My favorite too, especially Marimar Estates. 😉'
on If AI is a bubble, where does that leave Apple? - 'Zitron’s analysis brings to mind the analyst, Laura Martin. Prediction: During the next few months, once analyst skepticism of “AI as a service based on data centers” reaches fever pitch, Laura Martin will join that chorus. She will praise the foresight of Apple management for not wasting money on all that infrastructure. She will change her call on AAPL to a “strong buy.” When she appears on CNBC, she will defend her love of AAPL in a completely doubt-free manner, as though she knew it all along. CNBC hosts will nod and clap. She will do this after the run-up in AAPL price approaches its near-term zenith. Shortly thereafter, AAPL will correct. She will have cost her clients even more money. No one at CNBC will even try to hold her accountable.'
on Dan Niles on Apple AI: 'Sometimes you get lucky for being incompetent' - 'Remember Cramer’s infamous rant about analysts… ? “They know NOTHING!!!” Well, Dan Niles is the poster boy for the doofuses he’s referring to. As if you had’t noticed… AAPL closed today at a new all-time high: $340.08 It didn’t close at its midday high of $342.89, but hey… as Scarlett O’Hara put it, “Afterall, tomorrow is another day.”'
on AI funding is giving Jim Cramer dot-com deja vu - 'How old were the current AI leaders in 2000? Teenagers? The market has a short memory.'
on If AI is a bubble, where does that leave Apple? - 'Yesterday articles appeared about Nvidia considering backstopping OpenAI to the tune of $250 billion (yes, with a ‘B’!) for building data centers. I think the basic position that Apple may well be sitting on the sidelines watching the LLM-based AI industry cavitate and then, after surveying the carnage, tossing around some money for strategic acquisitions or partnerships is a pretty realistic possible thing within the next year or two. In the last few weeks I’ve seen what are the first public questions and criticisms I’ve found from commentators in the mainstream about the scale of hyperscaler spend and the increasing scale of financial circularity and off-books accounting, and also the first mention of the lack of any kind of detail from any of them about how they’re going to make a profit off of all of this spending, let alone even recoup their capex spending. The retail investment world seems to be catching on to it, and some companies at least will have exceptionally hard times explaining any of this, starting with OpenAI, Space-X, and Oracle, but really extending to all of them. However, I disagree with the notion that Apple’s tying itself to companies that it thinks won’t survive, or that Apple’s basically done nothing on AI. Not even considering what Apple’s been doing in-house with AI development, Apple’s built a strategic plan and model that enables it to leverage hyperscalers’ product functionality, in a sort of modified plug-and-play form. Does anyone think an AI bubble will make Google or Microsoft disappear? No. Because they have exceptionally profitable other businesses that are propping up their AI dreams, and if they have to write off their AI infrastructure prematurely, they’ll take the hit and move on. The other pure AI players won’t survive, because they don’t have any sort of sustainable financial model for continuing business. And I think that’s the case whether or not there’s a stock bubble-burst.'
on Horace Dediu has a cool new way to preview Apple earnings - 'Comparing apple quarter to quarter has never really made much sense to me. Apple is an extremely seasonal company.'
on Horace Dediu has a cool new way to preview Apple earnings - 'Somehow I have to really concentrate to understand the charts and the underlying information so not sure I would call it “cool”. Useful information for sure.'
on Dan Niles on Apple AI: 'Sometimes you get lucky for being incompetent' - 'The unfortunate things about these programs is that their guests usually have an agenda that they want to get across and they aren’t held accountable for the statements that they make. It would be nice if there was a real back and forth with the guests answering real questions about their opinion from the past as well as the present. It would probably make for fewer guests appearing on these shows which is probably the reason why they don’t do it. As for negative opinions, when I am in the right mood, I don’t mind seeing them. It helps me look at my investments and see if there are issues I haven’t taken into account. I dislike the echo chamber. Probably the place where most of the mistakes get made.'
