No analyst we know of correctly predicted Apple’s (AAPL) second fiscal quarter results for 2009, in which the company proved that computer makers don’t have to slash prices or build “junky” $400 netbooks to weather an economic storm. But some analysts did better than others.

Who did best?

Let’s look at the numbers. The table below represents the estimates of all the Wall Street analysts whose numbers we could get our hands on, as well as those of three of the most prominent blogger analysts. (We could have included lots more bloggers; everybody these days seems to have an Apple earnings spreadsheet in their hard drive.)

In our chart, the actual results and the most accurate estimates are highlighted in green. The worst estimates are highlighted in red. There were several ties.

The professionals and the bloggers scored roughly the same — which in itself tells you something. As usual, the bloggers were more bullish than the pros, but this quarter Apple’s actual results in most categories blew past even the most optimistic of the bulls.

It will pain some readers to hear this, given his bottom-of-the-barrel target for Apple’s shares ($95), but the blue ribbon goes once again to Mike Abramsky of RBC Capital, usually considered a Research in Motion (RIMM) bull and an Apple bear. He scored two greens and no reds this quarter. (Last quarter, when his price target was $70, he beat the field with three greens.) [UPDATE: CNBC's Jim Goldman reports that Abramsky reversed himself after that earnings report and has now slapped a $165 per share target on Apple.]

Tied for second place are Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster and Financial Alchemist’s Turley Muller, with two greens and one red apiece. Muller gets the edge in our book because he  hit so close and Munster missed so badly — and inexplicably — on Apple’s earnings per share.

Yair Reiner gets special mention for having nailed that surprising high iPhone unit sales number (3.8 million).

In the department of strange bedfellows, Andy Zaky of Bullish Cross — who never tires of berating the professional analysts for misunderstanding Apple, and has often singled out Morgan Stanley’s Kathryn Huberty for special opprobrium — ended up tied with Huberty in the iPod division, missing the actual number by nearly 500,000 units, but coming closer than anyone else in our chart.

And we can’t close without pointing out that among very worst predictions for the quarter were those offered by Apple COO Peter Oppenheimer, whose guidance numbers missed actual revenue by $360 million and EPS by $0.33 to $0.43 a share. Talk about conservative guidance!

For those readers who submitted estimates that I didn’t include here, you know who you are. Feel free to reiterate them in the comments.

Apple’s detailed earnings results are available in its press release. An audio webcast of the earnings call with analysts is available here and Seeking Alpha has published a transcript.

Barron’s Eric Savitz has published a round-up of analyst reactions to the earnings report — including Abramsky’s upgrade — here.

See also:

• Live from Apple’s Q2 earnings call
• 5 key quotes from Apple’s earnings call
• Apple’s Q2: A test of fundamentals
• Apple Q1 earnings: Analyzing the analysts

Acting CEO Tim Cook handled the bulk of the questions from analysts in Apple’s (AAPL) second-quarter earnings call Wednesday, and he seized the opportunity — in Steve Jobs’ absence — to wave the company’s flag.

Five key quotes (checked against Seeking Alpha’s transcript):

On Apple’s shrinking market share: “I care about US share, of course I do. However, I think cycles come and cycles go. And what we’re about is making the best computers in the world, not making the most. … And we believe that if we do that over the long-term that we will gain share.”

On netbooks: “For us, it’s about doing great products. And when I look at what is being sold in the netbook space today, I see cramped keyboards, terrible software, junky hardware, very small screens, and just not a consumer experience, and not something that we would put the Mac brand on quite frankly. And so, it’s not a space as it exists today that we are interested in, nor do we believe that customers in the long term would be interested in.”

On leaving AT&T for Verizon: “We view AT&T as a very good partner. … We’re very happy with the relationship that we have and do not have a plan to change it. From a technology point of view as you know, Verizon is on CDMA and we chose from the beginning of the iPhone to focus on one phone for the whole of the world and when you do that, you really go down the GSM route, because CDMA is – doesn’t really have a life to it after a point in time.”

On China: “We now have of the four BRIC countries, Brazil, Russia, India, and China, we have three of those up. We would like to be in China within the next year and are currently working on that. But I have got nothing specific to announce today on this.”

On the Palm pre and Apple’s intellectual property: “We think competition is great, we think it makes all of us better, as long as other companies invent their own stuff.”

See also:

• Live from Apple’s Q2 earnings call
• Apple’s Q2: A test of fundamentals

When Apple (AAPL) reported its fiscal 2009 first-quarter earnings, exactly three months ago, the stock opened the day at $78.20, its lowest point since October 2006.

On Wednesday, when Apple is scheduled to report its second-quarter results, the same shares opened at $122.27 — a 56% increase.

While that’s still below the price targets set by most analysts — many of whom revised their targets upward in just the past week — some think Apple’s share price has got ahead of itself.

RBC Capital’s Mike Abramsky (an Apple bear) said as much in a note to clients Tuesday. “Valuation has risen faster than peers … and while we expect near term upside around the refreshed iPhone, we continue to see elevated challenges ahead to valuation.”

Still, Apple is not in the same kind of trouble as its competitors — like Dell (DELL) for example. Apple still has rich cash holdings ($25 billion, or $29 per share), enviable profit margins (34.7% last quarter) and the deferred revenue from seven quarters of iPhone sales (which could add 30 or 40 cents to its earnings per share).

But the company has a basic problem with its fundamentals: two of its three primary engines of growth have stalled.

As Silicon Alley’s Dan Frommer points out, the Street is expecting Apple to report that it shipped 2.1 to 2.2 million Macs in the second quarter — a year-over-year decline of 4% to 9%. That would represent the first time in five years that Mac sales have shrunk. Moreover, it’s being compared with a quarter (2008 Q2) in which Mac sales grew by more than 50%. (See chart below.)

Chart: Andy Zaky

Meanwhile, iPod shipments are also expected to shrink — a 6% decline, to about 10 million units.

The iPhone — which was supposed to fill the gap — is still on its growth curve. The Street expects Apple to report that it shipped 3.3 million units in the quarter, nearly doubling last year’s Q2 shipments of 1.7 million.

But that may not be enough to make up the difference. The consensus, according to Thomson Financial, is that Apple will report earnings of $1.09 a share on revenues of $7.94 billion — a 5.7% year-to-year increase in revenue and a 6% decline in earnings.

“How can the market justify giving Apple a 22 P/E,” asks Andy Zaky of Bullish Cross, “when it’s not growing at all?”

Zaky, a blogger-analyst who has taken his Apple profits and turned “agnostic” on the stock, acknowledges that he could be wrong. One could argue, he says, that the market has already adjusted for the current state of affairs by taking Apple’s stock price from $200 to $120. Or that Apple’s growth drivers have stalled because of weakness in the economy and not because there’s anything inherently wrong with the company.

And there are several things that could kick-start Apple’s growth. Like if the rumors are true that Apple is about to cut an iPhone deal in China, or that it’s set to unveil a new family of iPhones, or that it’s working on a new device that will be its answer to all those $400 netbooks — or that the global economy has turned a corner and started to recover.

Meanwhile, the pressure is on COO Tim Cook (standing in for Steve Jobs) and CFO Peter Oppenheimer to report Q2 results that surprise the skeptics, chart a path for growth and offer guidance for Q3 that, while dutifully conservative, reflects a little more confidence in Apple’s future.

Apple will report its earnings on Wednesday after the markets close. A conference call with reporters and analysts is scheduled for 5 p.m. ET (2 p.m. PT). Tune in here for live coverage and analysis.

See also:

• Bearish grunts from a pair of Apple bulls
• Why Apple’s shares rose as its market share shrank
• Kaufman’s Wu changes tune, ups Apple target 26%
• Barclays raises its Apple target 26%

Below the fold: more Zaky charts, including operating expenses by quarter and Mac sales by region.

You know Apple (AAPL) is in for a bumpy quarter when both Gene Munster and Andy Zaky sound bearish notes in advance of the company’s fiscal Q2 earnings report — due out Wednesday after the markets close.

Munster, a senior research analyst at Piper Jaffray, is one of Apple’s strongest supporters among the mainstream analysts. And Zaky, who writes a blog called Bullish Cross, is best known for his quarterly analyst smackdowns, in which bloggers who follow the stock challenge the pros to do a better job than they at predicting Apple’s numbers.

Neither man has turned negative on Apple. Munster retains his “buy” rating and is sticking to his price target of $180 a share — one of the highest in the industry. And Zaky, while acknowledging that the Street’s consensus estimates for Q2 — earnings of $1.09 a share on revenue of $7.94 billion — are “more fairly stated” than they’ve been in recent quarters, still expects Apple to beat them.

Munster, however, issued a report to clients Tuesday in which he predicts that Apple will miss the Street’s consensus on both revenue (by a hair) and earnings (by a mile). See chart:

And while Zaky believes the Street is still too cautious, he has become uncharacteristically pessimistic about Apple’s near-term prospects.

“Bullish Cross is readjusting its outlook on Apple to a view that is more commensurate with the increasingly bleak economic environment,” he wrote in a post published Monday on Seeking Alpha. “Given the relatively high lack of transparency with regard to iPhone and Macintosh sales going forward, Bullish Cross holds an increasingly cautious view with regard to Apple’s fundamentals and earnings estimates in 2009.”

Given that Munster expects Apple to meet or beat the consensus on Mac, iPhone and iPod sales, it’s hard to understand at first glance why his earnings estimate is so low — $.98 per share vs. the Street’s $1.09 and Zaky’s $1.19. But in Tuesday’s report he explains that he calculated that $.98 using the guidance on gross margins that Apple issued in January (32.5%). Using the gross margins Apple enjoyed in Q1 (34.7%) his EPS estimate jumps to $1.11.

Given how easily Zaky expects Apple to beat the consensus on revenue and EPS — and how loudly he has railed in the past at analysts too “clueless” to follow Apple’s iPhone accounting — he is surprisingly toned-down this quarter. He has even canceled his quarterly smackdown.

His new “agnostic” attitude toward Apple may have something to do with the fact that Wall Street seems to have come around to his view of the company, driving Apple’s shares up 24% in the past month. It may also have something to do with the disclosure at the end of his post:

Disclosure: No Position in Apple.

It turns out that Zaky, who has been heavily invested in Apple all this time, has sold his shares.

Apple’s quarterly earnings call is scheduled for Wednesday, April 22, at 5 p.m. ET (2 p.m. PT). Tune in here for live coverage and analysis.

See also:

• Apple Q1 earnings: Analyzing the analysts
• Apple Q1 2009 earnings smackdown
• Apple Q4 earnings: Analyzing the analysts
• Apple Q4 2008 earnings smackdown

Less than three weeks after sounding a bearish note on Apple (AAPL) by dropping the stock from his firm’s “Focus List,” Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu turned around Monday and raised his price target to $152 a share, up from $120.

With Apple scheduled to release its fiscal Q2 earnings report on April 22, many analysts are taking another look at the stock — and most seem to like what they see.

Last week, Barclays Capital’s Ben Reitzes also raised his price target 26% — to $143 from $113. His move followed Credit Suisse’s Bill Shope, who rated Apple “outperform” with a target price of $133; and Canaccord Adams’ Peter Misek, who called the stock a “speculative buy” with a $143 target.

[UPDATE: Caris & Co.'s Robert Cihra also raised his price target Monday, to $150 from $120; he thinks the iPhone and the App Store may still be under appreciated by investors.]

In his report to clients, Wu argues that even though Apple has outperformed the indexes — up 45% since late November vs. 20% for the NASDAQ and 7% for the S&P 500 — there is room for upside growth. As investors gain confidence, he writes, Apple shares may move closer to their traditional multiples of 20 to 25 times earnings.

Wu cites several near-term “catalysts” to justify his optimism:

• The World Wide Developers Conference in June, where he expects Apple to release the new iPhone operating system (OS 3.0) and to unveil new iPhone hardware (presumably for release later this summer)
• Improving sales of Apple’s flagship computer line, thanks to the recent refresh of its desktop machines (iMac, Mac mini, and Mac Pro) and the upcoming launch of Snow Leopard, the latest major revision of Mac OS X.
• A wild card: “The potential for a new form factor, perhaps Apple’s answer to the netbook, with a large screen iPod touch-Mac hybrid.”

Wu also issued something rare for an analyst: a mea culpa (albeit one couched in “arguablies”). Referring to his March 24 report on Apple, he writes:

“We had arguably been a bit defensive with the stock over $107, taking it off our Focus List given we are arguably still in a bear market and investors not willing to pay more than 15x for quality hardware names. However, it appears that investor sentiment has turned a bit more constructive and willing to pay for quality names as we have seen with Apple, Research in Motion, Google, and Amazon.”

See also:

• Barclays raises its Apple target 26%
• Apple Q1 earnings: Analyzing the analysts

Anticipating a new family of iPhones in June and a new ultraportable later in the year, Barclays Capital’s Ben Reitzes has raised his price target for Apple (AAPL) shares to $143 from $113 — a 26% increase — and upped his earnings estimates across the board.

Reitzes has also changed the way he calculates Apple’s price targets, which, if it catches on, could make a significant difference in the Street’s view of the company.

With Apple scheduled to release its fiscal second-quarter earnings report on April 22, many high-tech analysts will be taking a fresh look at the company over the next two weeks, and Reitzes is one of the first out of the block.

The main change in Reitzes’ near-term numbers is a new, more bullish view of iPhone sales. Based on research that suggests they held up better this quarter than he thought they would, he’s upped his estimate of Q2 unit shipments to 2.8 million (from 2.2 million). He’s also upped his Q3 estimate to 4.3 million units (from 2.1 million) anticipating the release of new iPhones in June.

For this year and next, he’s expecting …

• 2009 iPhone sales of 17.4 million units (was 13.3 million)
• 2010 iPhone sales of 22 million units (was 19 million)

Reitzes’ description of the new iPhones is in line with what the rumor sites have been reporting, including an upgraded camera, new software, better email and security. He’s particularly excited about the possibility of a second camera in the front of the phone (for video chatting) and video recording features that could rival Pure Digital’s popular “Flip” product line. He also expects an iPhone deal for mainland China — probably with China Unicom — no later than June.

Reitzes has less to say about the ultraportable he thinks Apple will release in the second half of 2009, except that he believes the company will address the growing netbook market “in its own differentiated way” — perhaps with a tablet-like computer/iPod optimized for media, gaming and special functions like mobile iChat.

But perhaps the most significant thing about Reitzes’ report is the new way he is calculating Apple’s future earnings.

Most analysts are still using GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) formulas that ignore the money flooding into Apple’s coffers from iPhone subscription accounting. (See Apple’s growing cash hoard.)

But that share of Apple’s earnings, as Steve Jobs put it last year, is getting too big to ignore. So from now on, Reitzes will be calculating his price targets based on so-called non-GAAP numbers that include this revenue stream. He’s reached his new $143-per-share target by applying a 15X multiple to a “pro forma” non-GAAP estimated EPS of $7.88 for fiscal 2010.

It will be interesting to see over the next two weeks if other Apple analysts follow his lead.

See also:

• Spotlight on Apple’s hidden revenue stream
• The day Apple released its iPhone revenue bomb
• Deferred earnings: Apple’s hidden revenue bonus

A lot of Steve Jobs watchers were surprised three weeks ago when Mike Abramsky of RBC Capital Markets downgraded Apple (AAPL) to “underperform” and lowered his price target from $125 a share to $70. (link)

The stock, which opened at $84.3 that Friday, slid to $78.2 the following Monday, a 27-month low.

That bearish report — which cited Jobs’ recently announced medical leave — was especially troubling to anybody holding Apple shares because Abramsky’s track record is pretty good. He gets five stars out of five on Yahoo Finance’s Star Analyst list, based on the accuracy of his Apple earnings estimates over the past two fiscal years.

And although he didn’t do as well when the company released quarterly earnings the following week — Abramsky undershot Apple’s Q1 revenue by $367 million and its EPS by a full 30 cents ($1.48E vs. $1.78A) — his estimates for sales of Macs, iPods and iPhones were uncannily accurate. See Apple Q1 earnings: Analyzing the analysts.

So how would investors who followed Abramsky’s guidance have fared?

Not so well. The stock has been on a tear lately, climbing 27.5% in the past three weeks to close at $99.72 on Friday. Anybody who sold short the Monday after Abramsky’s downgrade, hoping to cash in when the stock hit $70, would have lost his or her shirt.

Abramsky, for his pains, was a co-recipient of iPhone Asia’s second Dean Wormer award, named for the “Animal House” academic famous for the quality of his advice (e.g. “Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.”)

But he’s certainly not the only expert out there advising folks to stay clear of this stock.

If you’re looking for a healthy dose of Apple FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt), you could do worse than to pay a visit to Paluxo.com, whose report Saturday on Apple as a short-term investment quotes Cabot Wealth Advisory analyst Timothy Lutts (”it’s highly likely that the stock’s best days are over”) and TheStreet.com director of research Colin Gillis (”The good news is out, so what’s coming next? Most likely it’s going to be a bad.” ). See Short Term Stock Trading: Should You Buy Apple (AAPL)?

Many long-term investors in Apple, on the other hand, have been richly rewarded. The same report notes that Apple’s gain from its 2003 low to its Dec. 2007 high was 3,090%.

On Tuesday, Bullish Cross‘ Andy Zaky, representing a group of  unaffiliated analysts who track Apple (AAPL) in blogs, challenged the professionals who do it for banks and brokerage houses — and whom the bloggers believe are largely clueless (see Apple Q1 2009 earnings smackdown).

So now that Apple has reported its 2009 Q1 earnings, how did the two teams do?

The results are summarized in the chart below. The red numbers are the worst two estimates; the green numbers the best two.

What’s immediately apparent is the sharp difference in sentiment. The bloggers tend to be bullish, the Street — at least on Apple — tends to bearishness. And on the number that matters most to investors — earnings per share — the bloggers were right on the money, missing the actual EPS by only a few pennies. The Street, by contrast, underestimated Apple’s earnings by 40 cents a share — a stunning 22.5%.

But the best individual performance goes to a professional, RBC Capital’s Mike Abramsky, who had three greens and no reds, correctly calling (or at least getting in the ball park of) unit sales numbers for iPhones, iPods and Macs — although he did miss revenues by $367 million and, bizarrely, has the lowest price target for Apple in the business: $70 a share.

On the other hand, the two worst performances were also turned in by professionals: Bernstein Research’s Toni Sacconaghi, who scored no greens and missed Apple’s revenue number by $874 million, and Morgan Stanley’s Kathryn Huberty, who underestimated unit sales in every category and missed the iPod number by 6.27 million units. (If anybody has her estimates for revenue and EPS, we’d love to fill in those blanks.) (UPDATE: Huberty’s Q1 estimates: EPS $1.34; revenue $9.569 billion. Thanks Turley!)

For everybody else, it was mixed bag. Zaky scored two greens and two reds, overestimating iPhone sales by 2.75 million units (a mistake he attributes to the fact that Apple drew down iPhone inventory heavily in the quarter).

Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster, the bulls’ favorite analyst, came closest on Apple’s revenue number but missed its EPS by 45 cents. We’ve asked him how that can happen and will update if we get an answer.

Special mention goes to Scott Craig of Merrill Lynch, who scored highest in Apple’s tricky non-GAAP numbers, the adjusted earnings that factor out deferred revenue on iPhone sales (see Spotlight on Apple’s hidden revenue stream). Making sense of Apple’s subscription accounting is so tricky that most analysts don’t bother to do it. As you can see in the chart below, Craig did it better than anyone:

Overall, we’d have to call this one a draw. The bloggers called the EPS correctly, but the best individual performances were turned in by pros. Zaky, for his part, thinks we should give this round to them.

For our live blog of the earnings call, click here. For a transcript, click here. Apple’s press release, which includes its balance sheet, is here. And if you have an hour to spare, you can download a podcast of the earnings call — including COO Tim Cook’s “we believe” speech — from the iTunes Store, where it will be available for two weeks. Just search the store for Apple Quarterly Earnings Call.

This is a live blog of Apple’s (AAPL) Q4 earnings call, which began at 5 p.m. EST (2 p.m. PST) and went on for an hour.

3:45 We’re 15 minutes away from the close of markets and the stock is up 4.3 points (5.5%), having opened the day at $78.20 — as low as it’s been since Oct. 9, 2006.

Apple investors have been on bumpy ride in those intervening 27 months, as the stock rose above $200, fell below $120, and then bungee-jumped back to nearly $190 before Steve Jobs showed up at a June conference looking like a Jenny Craig victim. The stock has been heading south ever since, on good news and bad.

4:00 The Street, for what it’s worth, is anticipating $1.38-a-share earnings for the quarter on sales of $9.74 billion, with sales of 2.5 million Macs, 18.5 million iPods and 4.5 million iPhones. This based on Thompson Financial’s usual survey of analysts.

4:17 Apple shares popped a bit in late trading to close the day at $82.83, up $4.63 (5.92%). Investors seem to have shaken off rumors of an SEC investigation.

4:20 No sign yet of Apple’s press release, which usually comes out 20-30 minutes before the conference call. The operator won’t let us in for another 25 minutes.

4:33 The numbers are in. The headlines:

• Revenue: $10.167 billion, up from $9.608 billion in Q1 2008
• Profit: $1.605 billion, up from $1.581
• EPS: $1.78 per diluted share vs. $1.76
• iPods: 22.727 million (this is way higher than anyone predicted)
• iPhones: 4.363 million, up 88% year-to-year (slightly below consensus)
• Macs: 2.524 million (slightly above consensus)
• Gross margin:  34.7%, no change
• International sales: 46%
• non-GAAP revenue: $11.8 billion
• non-GAAP earnings: $2.3 billion
• Cash: $28.1 billion, up $3.6 billion over Q4.

4:45 We’re in. Violin music.

4:50 Quick calculation shows quarterly sales beating the Street’s estimate by $427 million. Stock is up nearly 11% in after hours trading.

4:54 From the press release:

“Even in these economically challenging times, we are incredibly pleased to report our best quarterly revenue and earnings in Apple history—surpassing $10 billion in quarterly revenue for the first time ever,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO.

4:59 Guidance, as usual is conservative: Apple expects to earn 90 cents to $1 per share on $7.6 billion to $8 billion in sales in Q2. The Street was looking for $1.13 per share on $8.2 billion in revenue.

Below the fold: The conference call, starting right on time.

UPDATE: The results are in! See Analyzing the analysts to find out who won the smackdown.

–

It’s that time of year again.

After the markets close on Wednesday, Apple (AAPL) will report its earnings for fiscal 2009 Q1. And once again blogger Andy Zaky has challenged the professional analysts — most of whom, in his opinion, are clueless — to do as good a job anticipating those results as he and his blogger buddies do.

Last quarter, the round went to the bloggers, who over-estimated Mac sales and therefore total revenue, but were far closer to the mark on nearly every other number (see Apple Q4 earnings: Analyzing the analysts).

This quarter, Zaky expects the pros to do even worse. “If previous earnings debacles weren’t already embarrassing enough for the analysts,” he writes, “then this quarter should be one for the books.” (link)

The Street — represented by Thomson Financial’s polling data — expects Apple to report a relatively anemic quarter, with earnings of $1.38 per share on revenue of $9.74 billion. (Apple’s guidance offered a range: EPS between $1.06 and $1.35 on sales somewhere between $9.0 and $10.0 billion.)

Zaky, who tracks Apple in a blog called Bullish Cross, is expecting a blow-out quarter so much better than the Street’s consensus — as much as $1 billion — that trading in Apple shares could be halted. The estimates of colleagues, whom he calls the “unaffiliated analysts” are pretty much in line with his.

The key, according to Zaky, will be the adjusted — or non-GAAP — earnings that fully report revenue from iPhone sales (see Spotlight on Apple’s hidden revenue stream).

We’ll find out who is right soon enough, thanks to the scorecard Zaky has provided. He’s gathered all the analysts estimates he could get his hands on and assembled them in the spreadsheets pasted below the fold. (It’s a work in progress and may contain errors; analysts with corrections or updates are welcome to mail them here.)

Tune in to this space after the markets close to get Apple’s Q1 results and to follow our live blog of the company’s earnings call with analysts and reporters.