Apple (AAPL) reports strong earnings, but weak EPS forecast

As I noted in our earnings preview, there were three main factors that I wanted to pay attention to today; the Mac, iPod and iPhone. Mac was strong as expected, with shipments up 51% from the same period last year. We knew that the iPod would be a sore subject for the company, and that turned out to be true, as the company saw iPod growth of only 1% on a unit basis, and 8% on a revenue basis. The iPhone had a decent quarter, although not as good as some had hoped, with 1.7 million units sold in the quarter.

Despite the strong earnings for the quarter, shares of the stock are trading down about 1.6% in after hours trading. The reason is, as we saw last quarter, a weaker-than-expected EPS forecast for the current quarter. The company, which I must say always offers conservative estimates, stated that it sees Q3 earnings coming in between $1.00 and $1.10. Wall Street had previously been expecting to see the company bring in $1.10 for its third quarter.

So once again it is like we are reading the same story that we were three months ago. A great quarter, but the stock gets a little beaten up due to the conservative guidance. Will we see a repeat of the last three months where the stock tumbled 40 points after its Q1 report, only to rebound and make up all that lost ground in the next three months? I doubt we will see such a big pullback this time around, but definitely expect some selling tomorrow morning.

If you want to follow the company's conference call today, CNET is offering a live blog that will give you up-to-the-minute coverage on the call.

Disclosure: Mr. Fowlkes holds a long position in AAPL

Michael Fowlkes has worked as a stock trader for seven years and spent the last four years working as an analyst for the online investment advisory service Investor's Observer.