Apple Inc (AAPL)

[Investors3]

Apple closes in on another milestone: $100 billion in annual profit
Monday, October 11, 2021 8:25 am

On October 28th, Apple will report results for its fiscal year ended in September, and the company could show an annual profit of more than $100 billion.

Jack Hough for Barron’s:

The only company in that league is energy monopoly Saudi Aramco…

Third-quarter reporting season for S&P 500 index companies shifts into gear next week with reports from more than a half-dozen big banks. COVID broke a long-established pattern whereby analysts lowered estimates leading up to reporting time, and companies announced upside “surprises.” For five quarters running, estimates have climbed rather than fallen ahead of earnings season, and during the past four, companies still beat them. That’s because the strength of consumer spending during the pandemic has been genuinely surprising.

But the trend is slowing and may be ending. During the third quarter, S&P 500 earnings estimates rose just 2.9%, less than half the increase of the past two quarters. And broken down monthly, they rose 3.8% over July and August, and then fell 0.9% in September. That’s not a big drop, but it’s the biggest since June 2020, before vaccinations began turning things around.

That raises the question of whether inflation and shortages will sap growth around the same time that easy comparisons with hard-hit COVID quarters are ending. Last quarter, earnings bounced back more than 80%. As things stand now, they’re expected to rise 28% in the third quarter, and 22% in the fourth, before suddenly slowing to 6% and 4% growth in the first two quarters of next year. If estimates fall below that, stock buyers could lose enthusiasm, with the S&P 500 priced at 20 times next year’s earnings.

MacDailyNews Note: When Apple reports fiscal Q421 earnings results on October 28th, we’ll have them for you as soon as they are available, right around 1:30pm Pacific / 4:30pm Eastern and follow that with live notes from Apple’s confernce call with analysts starting at 2pm Pacific / 5pm Eastern.

https://macdailynews.com/2021/10/11/apple-closes-in-on-another-milestone-100-billion-in-annual-profit/