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Tracking Worldwide Sales for Accurate Revenue Estimates
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I think one of the great things about Apple is they possess an additional quality that many other high earnings-growth companies do not: sales are to the end-consumer / public.
For this quarter I visited various Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and Apple stores in my city (Phoenix area), and then I picked two other cities (Baltimore and Indianapolis) and quite frequently called to ascertain 1) the amount of out-of-stock models and 2) how well sales were going compared to the previous period in general. These data points / info were very helpful to me in my conviction for the this quarter (which is quite bullish).
Because I invest heavily in Apple, I’d like to refine / expand the data for Q3, getting more national and international data points. I’m currently also working on combining Chitaka’s new iPad data with another gentlemen and researching other data sources.
I’m wondering if other folks are also tracking / researching this kind of data and if there is interest to get broader set of data points going into Q3.
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hi Ray, welcome to the AFB. The clearest sense of overall sales is Robert Leitao’s Posts At Eventide.
http://www.postsateventide.com/p/apple-unit-sales.html
However, for key countries, it would be nice to have a breakdown. I don’t see a way to get accurate numbers there as easily as we can with Robert Leitao’s website.
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hi Ray, welcome to the AFB. The clearest sense of overall sales is Robert Leitao’s Posts At Eventide.
http://www.postsateventide.com/p/apple-unit-sales.html
However, for key countries, it would be nice to have a breakdown. I don’t see a way to get accurate numbers there as easily as we can with Robert Leitao’s website.
Thank you.
Regarding the link, I’m working on the sales data for this quarter beginning in April, not historic data. I’d like to get better estimates by the time this current quarter ends, building on what I did last time (but ideally with others wishing also to share information / build a good sales model)
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Gregg Thurman
- [ Ignore ]
hi Ray, welcome to the AFB. The clearest sense of overall sales is Robert Leitao’s Posts At Eventide.
http://www.postsateventide.com/p/apple-unit-sales.html
However, for key countries, it would be nice to have a breakdown. I don’t see a way to get accurate numbers there as easily as we can with Robert Leitao’s website.
Thank you.
Regarding the link, I’m working on the sales data for this quarter beginning in April, not historic data. I’d like to get better estimates by the time this current quarter ends, building on what I did last time (but ideally with others wishing also to share information / build a good sales model)
I appreciate where you are coming from. At one time I had a network that spanned the US, Japan and China. As people moved on to other opportunities my network fell into disrepair. I started an investment group (The AAPLInvestor a Yahoo group) that worked for a little while to augment my efforts, but that dissolved into a social network when I gave up Admin responsibilities.
Since then I have come to rely on Apple’s own guidance, cross checked against historical trends. That has worked quite well for me in establishing quarterly estimates.
Establishing price targets is another matter entirely. I have tried all kinds of things since 2005 to get a handle on how the market will react to Apple’s earnings/guidance, with limited success. That is until December of 2011. At that time I developed a metric which has been very profitable for me.
There are a ton of people working on estimating Apple’s earnings. I would put your energy into understanding the market’s sentiment towards Apple’s reports. That is where the money is to be made.
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You can’t do more, make more, be more, than the next guy, if you think like the next guy. Think different.
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hi Ray, welcome to the AFB. The clearest sense of overall sales is Robert Leitao’s Posts At Eventide.
http://www.postsateventide.com/p/apple-unit-sales.html
However, for key countries, it would be nice to have a breakdown. I don’t see a way to get accurate numbers there as easily as we can with Robert Leitao’s website.
Thank you.
Regarding the link, I’m working on the sales data for this quarter beginning in April, not historic data. I’d like to get better estimates by the time this current quarter ends, building on what I did last time (but ideally with others wishing also to share information / build a good sales model)
I appreciate where you are coming from. At one time I had a network that spanned the US, Japan and China. As people moved on to other opportunities my network fell into disrepair. I started an investment group (The AAPLInvestor a Yahoo group) that worked for a little while to augment my efforts, but that dissolved into a social network when I gave up Admin responsibilities.
Since then I have come to rely on Apple’s own guidance, cross checked against historical trends. That has worked quite well for me in establishing quarterly estimates.
Establishing price targets is another matter entirely. I have tried all kinds of things since 2005 to get a handle on how the market will react to Apple’s earnings/guidance, with limited success. That is until December of 2011. At that time I developed a metric which has been very profitable for me.
There are a ton of people working on estimating Apple’s earnings. I would put your energy into understanding the market’s sentiment towards Apple’s reports. That is where the money is to be made.
Thanks for your comments Gregg. Regarding the sentiment/metric that you developed, can you provide further insight?
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Gregg’s metrics are two kinds (I also am fairly closely reading with Gregg on these issues, so I will jump in and save him some typing):
1. the Investor Sentiment Metric (ISM), which is numerically the same as the PE ratio (at this time), but the focus is less bland the PE. By defining the metric properly, we know what we are measuring. PE is only numbers. ISM = Investor Sentiment.
2. For this one, I don’t know the title of the metric that others use. I call it the Sandbag Ratio. Each year, the sandbag ratio is stable until the next year. Then it gets recalibrated. Gregg believes the Sandbag Ratio has been raised this year.
There are a number of posts by forum members in recent weeks on this exact topic.
http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/forums/viewthread/82290/
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Gregg Thurman
- [ Ignore ]
I appreciate where you are coming from. At one time I had a network that spanned the US, Japan and China. As people moved on to other opportunities my network fell into disrepair. I started an investment group (The AAPLInvestor a Yahoo group) that worked for a little while to augment my efforts, but that dissolved into a social network when I gave up Admin responsibilities.
Since then I have come to rely on Apple’s own guidance, cross checked against historical trends. That has worked quite well for me in establishing quarterly estimates.
Establishing price targets is another matter entirely. I have tried all kinds of things since 2005 to get a handle on how the market will react to Apple’s earnings/guidance, with limited success. That is until December of 2011. At that time I developed a metric which has been very profitable for me.
There are a ton of people working on estimating Apple’s earnings. I would put your energy into understanding the market’s sentiment towards Apple’s reports. That is where the money is to be made.
Thanks for your comments Gregg. Regarding the sentiment/metric that you developed, can you provide further insight?
Yes, I can. It involves the most commonly used formula for determining an equities value. I will give it as it is most commonly used (EPS X PE), even though I think the formula is used erroneously.
PE refs to the relationship between PPS and EPS. I think that is a gross error on many fronts. I refer to “PE” as ISM (Investor Sentiment Multiplier). Instead of multiplying “PE” times EPS to arrive at value per share, I think you should divide PPS by EPS to arrive at Investor Sentiment. Investor Sentiment is neither ‘good’, nor ‘bad’, it is what it is because it is created by the Investor, unlike the definition of “PE” which WS regularly defines as ‘good’, or ‘bad’.
After all, it is Investor Sentiment that creates the value of an equity.
Using that concept I measure the change in Investor Sentiment from one earnings report to the next. I use that period because EPS is the only constant during the period.
I then assume that the highest PPS during that period reflects the highest Investor Sentiment for the period. With the new earnings report, we divide PPS by the new EPS and arrive at the new Investor Sentiment Multiplier. What we also get is a view into Investor Sentiment towards the new EPS. I determine that by diving the new PPS by the prior period’s intraday high. This gives me a percent that is either positive, or negative. If it is a negative percent, then investors were not impressed with the earnings report and/or guidance. If it is a positive percent then investors were impressed with the earnings report and/or guidance. The higher, or lower, the percent gives me an indication of the degree that investors liked, or disliked, the earnings report.
I call this percent Institutional Sentiment, because Institutions own more than twice as much of Apple as do retail traders.
Examples:
The day before January earnings: Institutional Sentiment was 0%. The day after earnings Institutional Sentiment was +5%, which was higher than any day during the October/January period. The average Institutional Sentiment for the period October earnings to January earnings was -6%. This means, that even with higher EPS, the Institutions felt AAPL wasn’t worth as much as they did during the previous period (July earnings to October earnings) by -6%.
Since January earnings Institutional Sentiment has averaged +26%. The change in Institutional Sentiment is also reflected in daily trading volume during the same period definition.
For October through January average daily trading volume was 12,681,000 shares.
Since January average daily trading volume has been 22,647,000.Clearly, the Institutions have returned to AAPL, as noted by trading volume, the change in sentiment, and the positive change in AAPL’s valuation.
I will know how the Institutions feel about Apple’s April earnings report the day after that report is made, by comparing Institutional Sentiment to the day after January’s, and all prior reports.
Knowing how the institutions feel about Apple’s earnings report gives me a leg up in projecting AAPL’s PPS through the subsequent period.
[ Edited: 11 April 2012 05:41 PM by Gregg Thurman ]Signature
You can’t do more, make more, be more, than the next guy, if you think like the next guy. Think different.
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Gregg Thurman
- [ Ignore ]
Gregg’s metrics are two kinds (I also am fairly closely reading with Gregg on these issues, so I will jump in and save him some typing):
1. the Investor Sentiment Metric (ISM), which is numerically the same as the PE ratio (at this time), but the focus is less bland the PE. By defining the metric properly, we know what we are measuring. PE is only numbers. ISM = Investor Sentiment.
2. For this one, I don’t know the title of the metric that others use. I call it the Sandbag Ratio. Each year, the sandbag ratio is stable until the next year. Then it gets recalibrated. Gregg believes the Sandbag Ratio has been raised this year.
There are a number of posts by forum members in recent weeks on this exact topic.
http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/forums/viewthread/82290/
You did well Grasshopper. : )
Signature
You can’t do more, make more, be more, than the next guy, if you think like the next guy. Think different.
