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"FORTUNE &amp;#8212; &amp;#8220;We see a reasonable probability that Apple will miss consensus revenue expectations due to macroeconomic weakness in China and Europe, a product cycle lull in the iPhone, a later than expected introduction of the new iPad into China, and the late quarter introduction of new Mac notebooks.&amp;#8221;\nSo begins the note to clients issued Friday by Bernstein&amp;#8217;s Toni Sacconaghi in which he lowered most of his estimates, from iPhone unit sales to his top to bottom lines, for Apple&amp;#8217;s \n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\tAAPL\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t third fiscal quarter &amp;#8212; one of the factors that helped drive the company&amp;#8217;s shares down $10.02 (1.63%) for the day.\n&amp;#8220;We are a bit torn on Apple&amp;#8217;s stock,&amp;#8221; Bernstein concluded, &amp;#8220;but on balance believe that it risks treading water or underperforming coming out of earnings.&amp;#8221;\nContrast that with the e-mail I received from Bullish Cross&amp;#8216; Andy Zaky after he met with Piper Jaffray&amp;#8217;s Gene Munster and Asymco&amp;#8217;s Horace Dediu at Fortune&amp;#8217;s Brainstorm Tech conference last week:\n&amp;#8220;After speaking with them, I think this could potentially be a blowout quarter. \u00A0The most recent blowout quarters we&amp;#8217;ve seen in Apple took place in fiscal Q1 2012, fiscal Q3 2011 and fiscal Q2 2010. \u00A0So they don&amp;#8217;t happen THAT often. \u00A0I think this quarter makes for a good set-up.\n&amp;#8220;In fact, I don&amp;#8217;t think I have felt more confident in how Apple is going to respond to earnings almost regardless of what it reports this quarter. \u00A0Apple is almost certainly going to gap-up on earnings. \u00A0I know the trading action is weak right now, but that is a major red herring.\n&amp;#8220;I couldn&amp;#8217;t be anymore confident in how the stock will react on earnings. \u00A0That&amp;#8217;s because Apple has gapped-up in 20 out of the last 26 earnings reports. \u00A0Three of the failures happened in Q1 2006, 2007, and 2008 when Apple had a consistent trend of selling off on Q1 earnings. \u00A0The other three failures had some major extenuating circumstances. \u00A0First we have two back to back sell-offs in Q4 2010 and Q4 2011. \u00A0One was the result of Apple being extremely overbought (Q2 2010) and the other was the result of Apple missing. \u00A0The 6th sell-off happened in Q3 2008 which was the result of Apple reporting in a very poor market environment. \u00A0So even if you don&amp;#8217;t discount or explain those six times Apple has sold-off on earnings (three of which happened ages ago) the fact of the matter is, Apple gaps-up 80% of the time. [See chart below the fold.]\n&amp;#8220;So I think market participants really need to be thinking twice about selling into earnings right now. \u00A0As investor will soon find out, that will be a major mistake this quarter. \u00A0If you sell ahead of the results, you will likely miss a major gap-up on earnings.&amp;#8221;\nApple will report its Q3 2012 earnings after the markets close on Tuesday, July 24. See here for our round-up of analysts&amp;#8217; estimates.\nBelow the fold: Zaky&amp;#8217;s chart.\n\n\n Click to enlarge. Source: Bullish Cross"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://fortune.com/2012/07/21/which-way-will-apple-move-after-tuesdays-earnings-report/?source=yahoo_quote>