Apple to Release Earnings... What do I expect?

What do expect when Apple reports today? I do believe their stock will go down either way.

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster has made an interesting observation related to Apple's past outlooks. In the last eight quarters, Munster says Apple has guided its earnings per share or EPS 9% below the consensus estimate and sales 4% below, on average. Apple then tops the original EPS estimates by 27% and sales estimates by 4%.

So, analysts have a different ballpark. The consensus earnings estimate for the fourth quarter is $1.11/per share, on $8.05 billion in revenues. In the year-ago period, Apple reported EPS of $1.01, on revenues of $6.22 billion.

Analysts are also expecting Apple to say it sold 2.7 million Macs, 10.5 million iPods and about 4 million iPhones during the fourth quarter. In the third quarter, the company sold 717,000 iPhones, 2.5 million Macs and 11.01 million iPods.

The gross margins will be an important point of investor focus. In July, Apple rattled investors by guiding its fourth-quarter gross margin down 330 basis points sequentially to 31.5% from 34.8%, citing new low-margin products. During the quarter, Apple revamped its iPod line of portable media players and launched the iPod touch, a lighter and lower-priced version.

Apple's Q1 guidance will also be on the radar. Some analysts believe that Apple should stop issuing ultra conservative guidance that does not truly reflect the company's potential performance. Street expects the company to report $1.65 in EPS on $10.57 billion in revenue for the first quarter.