Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL): According to CIBC iPhone has seen a significant decline

- CIBC's Ittai Kidron is out with monster call on Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) saying based on their store checks, they believe that demand for the iPhone has seen a significant decline in the past 10 days. CIBC has noticed decent inventories at stores, and thin demand at best. In fact, most Apple store visitors were not looking at the device and only a very small subset bought it.

With the weakness, they wouldn't be surprised to see AT&T and Apple step up their marketing efforts. Firm's channel checks suggest Apple is actually looking to introduce a 3G version of the iPhone for the U.S. market in November, ahead of the holiday season and earlier than currently expected.

Recent survey of iPhone buyers suggested that the key shortcoming of the current device is its poor data connectivity (EDGE). This isn't a surprise and Apple's CEO Steve Jobs admitted the iPhone's cellular connectivity can use an improvement. CIBC now believes the "improvement" could come soon.

Notablecalls: AAPL stock is going to get hit today. Big time! Positive iPhone flow has driven AAPL up 50 bucks over the past months. CIBC's call will erase some of this. I expect to see 5 bucks of downside today! Actionable call! Short at will!

PS: Note that ThinkEquity upped their tgt on Synchronoss (NASDAQ:SNCR) yesterday to $44 from $36 based on increased expectations for the iPhone. The stock was also added to Think's Top Picks list. SCNR has enjoyed a nice run, fueled by iPhone flow. I would not be surprised to see weakness in SCNR following CIBC's call.

18 comments:

Tommo_UK said...

Of course demand has dropped from the launch.. do they really think Apple are going to carry on selling 250k/day? Now that all Apple Stores and AT&T Stores are fully stocked, there won't be queues around the block any more. If there wasn't a "significant drop" from the launch then Apple would be selling 7M iPhones/month Christ, what a stupid, dumb, pointless and meaningless call.

I agree with CIBC.. there has likely been an 80%+ drop in iPhone demand since the launch weekend. Apple are probably selling 500k-750k/month now.

And that's meant to get me worried???? For god's sake CIBC, do some f-ing maths. And as for noteablecalls advice to "short at will,".. I recall them saying that when Apple was at $78.

How's your short working out, Noteable Calls?

notablecalls said...

Tom,

"...Thin demand at best..."

That does make me cautious.

I've made many short and long calls on AAPL. Trading calls, Tom. I tend to focus on the s-t view. We've talked about this before.

And it's Notable Calls not Noteable Calls.

Tommo_UK said...

"I've made many short and long calls on AAPL. Trading calls"

Mainly short, IIRC, but fair comment.

Unknown said...

Notable Calls: Very bad call.

You may get a short term pullback as a result of this shoddy piece of work but I think you will be proved horribly wrong on this one. Agree with the comments above that sustaining a million phone sales every two days was impossible and hardly a surprise to anyone - except you apparently.

notablecalls said...

Eric,

Please scroll up. My calls are mostly s-t in nature.

NC

DAILY MINDBLOG said...

Do people really go to business schools just to come up with such thrash? CIBC's call is the worst and most senseless I have ever heard or read. This call needs to go into the record books.

I just read AT&T's earnings statement and I bet I got more information on Iphone's traction than the crap written by CIBC.

Notablecalls please stay away from becoming another Cramer on the web.

Dave said...

You can short all you want, let me know if you need a place to sleep after you lose everything you own.

notablecalls said...

D. Rich,

I'll keep that in mind!

NC

notablecalls said...

Looks like AAPL is down over 5 bucks in pre-market.

NC

damndeals said...

S&P Downgrades AAPL to hold from buy based on valuation

Analyst: Scott Kessler

We believe Apple's fundamentals remain strong on market-share gains in desktops and laptops, success with digital-media players and software, and notable inroads in the smartphone category. Based largely on these successes, we believe Apple should trade at a greater premium to the p-e-to-growth rate of the S&P 500 Technology Sector, and we are raising our 12-month target price to $155 from $135. However, we think our downgrade is warranted by risk-reward considerations, especially with expectations high and Apple scheduled to report June-quarter results on Wednesday.

Guys take it easy, Notable Calls is just posting what's out there, don't shoot the messenger!

Orioles_Rule said...

I agree with Notable Calls. This market is very over bought. We are SOO overdue for a correction and AAPL has run up on the iPhone launch news for too long. If I owned AAPL I would be looking to take some profits here.

matte351 said...

Too many people here are trying to defend Apple which makes me wonder a bit. I will short Apple on any bounce.

Unknown said...

How long does it take to process iPhone registrations? Is it possible that there is a 1 day lag with what was registered at AT&T and number of iPhones bought?

Unknown said...

"Too many people here are trying to defend Apple which makes me wonder a bit. I will short Apple on any bounce."

it makes you wonder... AAPL longs are trying to counter the shorts? :P

FYI, I already sold some @ 135 early last week, I'll be buying back as soon as it hits the right $ amount. I was tempted to sell more yesterday but was too busy at work to read up on the stock :(

Unknown said...

The AAPL "day before earnings FUDs" is a known phenomenon... everyone is free to take advantage of this :D

I also want to add that no matter how positive, even on a blow-out earnings report, AAPL always seems to disappoint partly due to some so-called "whisper" number that always seems to be 10X higher than what's reported.

cooolbabu said...

This is an extreme S.T view. You should know that their earnings are coming out within a day and the actual numbers are going to be in. And there will be surprises.

S.T view means a couple weeks. Not couple of days.

JJ2000426 said...

SWC down another 8.25% today. In the past three days it dropped a total of 20%. SWC is the only palladium and platinum producer in the US. Palladium and platinum are very important precious metals that see price trippled in the past three years. This is a stock with extremely bullish fundamentals and this may well be the CAPITULATION event where you get an excellent entry point. See my analysis of the SWC fundamentals.

JJ2000426 said...
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