Here's my question: Why is the stock down 5% on an announcement that beats estimates, and is a record for the company, along with positive guidance. I do not understand the markets as much as I thought I did.
AAPL actually missed revenue estimates by a little, which may have caused concern for some who always expect tremendous quarterly reports.
As the stock has fallen below $500 in after-hours trading, I think we'll see a correction in the morning from limit-orders that may have hit while the market was closed.
Apple is a great company with a very healthy business, but AAPL as a stock is not in the same shape.
Considering that there are a number of analysts and they produce a range of estimates, it doesn't seem accurate to reduce things to "beat" or "missed" estimates - it's possible to beat most of the estimates but miss a few of them, or vice versa.
You will always see articles about how the "market reacted to X" in the announcement when this occurs.
X is often different between articles ;)
Because revenue growth is starting to fade away and margins are being hurt. Despite a lot of really, really ridiculous things said about equities here on HN (or any tech board), the market is quite rational and future-facing. Look back on all of the absurd conspiracy theories about options traders keeping AAPL down, and compare with the reality that it is down 6% aftermarket today. Of course it's down from enormous heights, so in no universe is Apple in imperiled or any nonsense like that, but it simply isn't the darling that it was a year+ ago.
I don't think it's fair to characterize Apple as "down from enormous heights." Throughout 2012, Apple's P/E meandered between 13-15, which puts it in the company of stocks like IBM and MSFT, and below Oracle. Even at its 700+ highs, Apple's P/E never came close to that of Google. It doesn't seem like a bubble.
As @gruber pointed out, 3 years ago they were making $50 billion annually and they just announced they were making $54.5 billion in a _quarter_. You can't expect 20% increases every quarter when you're at the top of the market.