There are plenty of people who claim to know what kind of financials to expect from Apple when it reports earnings this afternoon, but the truth is no one has any idea.
Analyst estimates for Apple’s fiscal first-quarter earnings run the gamut from a low of $11.53 a share to a high of $15.50 a share. Sure, consensus is $13.41 per share, but the variance between low and high estimates is vast. Depending on whom you ask, Apple is either going to blow the quarter out, or flat out blow it. It might post a 12 percent year-over-year increase in earnings. Or it might post a 14 percent decline. Consensus calls for a 3 percent decline, but that’s just an average of what is obviously some pretty broadly distributed guesswork. Further complicating matters: In the year-ago quarter there were 14 weeks; this time there were 13.
