Apple Inc.’s (Nasdaq: AAPL, stock) was trading up 6 points yesterday ahead of today’s “Special Event” at 1:00 pm E.T. The company however has not given any indication of the subject of the event, so in turn there has been a lot of speculation over the last few weeks regarding what will be announced, as is always the case ahead of an anticipated event for the widely-followed company. For the most part, the speculation we’ve read relates to incremental improvements to existing product lines, rather than some radical new product announcement.
Some of the possibilities that have been mentioned in the widely published speculation include the following:
- the new iPod may be able to download music wirelessly from iTunes,
- iPod nano will be revamped, there could be a new case design with a new color scheme and the skinny design is rumored to be sacrificed to add a video-friendly display,
- the new iPod video may come with a wide-screen multi-touch panel similar to the iPhone, high storage capacity and Wi-Fi connectivity
- an announcement regarding the Beatles catalog
- the possibility of ring tones being sold via iTunes.
There also have been supposed leaks of pictures of the redesigned iPod, which have resulted in the Apple legal department issuing a couple of take down orders to some of the more popular tech blogs as well as YouTube.
Additionally, AppleInsider has reported that retailers, including Best Buy andTarget, are gearing up for a big product release. Broker UBS expects the company to upgrade both the nano and video products. The firm is expecting higher capacity nanos at aggressive price points, as well as a flash based widescreen video iPod likely using multi-touch technology present in the iPhone for about $300 (firm expects higher capacity HDD versions as well).
Gene Munster, senior research analyst at Piper Jaffray, recently spent some time counting iPhone and Mac sales in Apple retail stores across the country. Here is what he found: Apple will likely hit its goal of 730,000 iPhones in the September quarter. Specifically, the analyst wrote, his checks indicate Apple could sell 804,000 iPhones, essentially in-line with his estimate of 800,000 units.
As for Mac sales, Munster said that those sales appear to be tracking ahead of plan. His research implies two million Macs sold in September, representing a slight upside to his estimate of 1.9 million. He maintains an “Outperform” rating on Apple with a price target of $211.
Apple is trading just below its late-July all-time high of 148.92, after trading up ~30% over the past few weeks from its 8/16 low of 111.62. Given the strong run in AAPL ahead of today’s event, FinanceTwitter expect the sell-on-news event to kick in pretty fast. So if you’re trading Apple’s stock, you might want to sell it before 1:00 pm E.T today if your trade is already in a profitable position.
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September 5th, 2007 by financetwitter
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