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Wednesday, March 30, 2011

re-assessing AAPL

Now that analysts are revising their numbers, lets put things in perspective.  The last 4 quarters AAPL had earnings of: 6.43, 4.64, 3.51 and 3.33.  This coming quarter, despite the downgrade, the 3.33eps will be replaced with the March 2011 earnings, where estimates are currently 5.30.

AAPL historically trades with a trailing PE between 19-21.  With the March quarter factored in and a trailing PE of 19, AAPL will have a stock price of 377. (see forward PE under 'links')

This can be done for the following quarter. Currently, the June quarter is 5.28. Extrapolating from the 5% 2011 estimate cut today's analyst gave AAPL and apply that to the June quarter, and the quarter will produce about 5.00. (This reasoning is very unreasonable because with this chatter the march-to-june quarter will not see a dip as consumers will not 'wait' for the new iPhone. The decline also ignores the awesome demand for the iPad 2.)

Basically, a conservative trailing PE assessment gives AAPL a short-midterm price target of 370.

As for the technicals, there is some resistance around the high 350 and 360 level.

How I plan on trading AAPL: The options I purchased during the week of March 14 decline, I plan on unloading near 357.  The remaining I will hold until 370 is seen.  If AAPL declines to 343-345, I will look to add.

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