Apple's shares rose from $58.97 to $76.98 in the quarter ending September 29 -- an increase of 31%. Given the fact that that company has not been able to file a 10-Q since May 5th due to potential options back-dating issues, that run-up is extraordinary. The company did announce earnings, but whether there will be any restatement of earlier periods is not clear.

Apple Computer, Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) may be doing well, but perhaps not 31%-per-quarter well. The iPod is clearly the multimedia market leader with sales in excess of 7 million units, but that growth could be slowing as the market waits for new models.

Investment firm Needham & Co. is forecasting Mac sales at above 1.5 million units for the September quarter. In the same quarter last year Mac sales were 1.2 million. However, according to Apple's 10-Q for the quarter ending 4/1/2006, Mac sales were 1.572 million, so the forecasts for the September quarter are hardly spectacular.

Then there is, of course, the matter of competition. Companies like Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ), Lenovo, and Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL) are unlikely to part with PC marketshare easily. And companies like Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)and Sandisk are entering the iPod's realm of the portable media player. Whether they are successful or not remains to be seen, but Microsoft is likely to spend hundreds of millions of dollars trying.

Citigroup downgraded Apple on valuation today noting that there was little upside to its third and fourth quarter numbers. As of 10:30 a.m. today, the stock is at down 2.38, or 3%, to $74.60.

It's starting to seem like Apple's share price run of 3% last quarter may have been a bit much.

Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.

Investors are a hopeful kind of bird. Yahoo! stock, along with many in the tech sector, has been in the doldrums as of late. Earnings are coming out in about an hour, though, and this makes the investor bird preen its feathers and buy in advance of the announcement. Despite intraday lows that were down signficantly from yesterday's close, Yahoo! ended the day at $32.17, up 33 cents or 1.04%.

But Piper Jaffray, among other analysts, are predicting good things, including the consensus 11 cents per share profit (down from 13 cents in the year-ago quarter) and positive news in the search ad revenue department. Check back at 5 p.m. Eastern, when we'll be liveblogging the earnings report.