Usually, at the bottom of my posts I disclose that I own Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) stock. Over the past couple years, it's been a nice fundamental stock with easy to read technical indicators that have allowed me to add to my retirement account.

But if you're using technicals to get in and out of a stock, you have to pay close attention to what is going on, and my attention was elsewhere during a recent project deadline. Behind my back, the stock dropped from the $170s to the $130s in the space of my busy single month.

My loss could well be your gain. Apple has leapt to a 10.6% market share in notebooks, and Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster expects Apple to show significant year-over-year sales gains with almost 3 million Macs and 11 million iPods. Recent customer surveys of people planning to buy a new computer have 34% interested in a Mac. But the recent general market, as well as fears about Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG)'s Android phone challenging the iPhone, have depressed the price. I've added to my portfolio at this price, as a result.

But don't take my word for it. Finance guru Jim Cramer also agrees that this recent drop in price makes Apple an attractive bargain:

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) has been on a roll this quarter. Up almost $30 since its July peak, the company has seen continuing enthusiasm about its iPhone release, with international launches in France, England, and Germany adding to the excitement. New iPods and the iPod Touch also helped keep Apple in the public eye.

However right after the earnings release last July, and iPhone enthusiasm, the stock suffered a strong dip due to fears about iPhone sales. That seems to have ameliorated, but investors do have to watch out for Apple investors who are really iPhone or iPod investors. Investors who are buying into the excitement, but not the fundamentals of the company, and who don't understand the full range of Apple services. Whenever negative iPod or iPhone news comes out, they have a tendency to run from the stock. Apple will have to demonstrate iPhone sales in line with its projections, and prove that iPods are not being hurt by iPhone sales to reassure jittery fair weather investors.

Last quarter Apple forecast earnings of 65 cents a share, or some $5.7 billion, for this upcoming fourth quarter. This is not as rosy as the third quarter: Apple is expecting back to school promotions and parts costs to cut into it's profit. However Apple has also beat its expectations for quite a few quarters running now.

As our sister site, The Unofficial Apple Weblog, points out, Apple is gaining marketshare, with somewhere between 6.3 or 8.1% of the market depending on who's surveying, making it the #3 computer company in the US. With solid sales of its computers, and now iPods and iPhones boosting the bottom line and attention, this fourth quarter is probably going to be another solid one for Apple. Analysts are estimating more than Apple's predicted 65 cents a share quarter, and consensus seems to be upwards of 80 cents a share.

But we'll only know for sure when we tune in on Monday to hear what Apple has to say with its latest earnings report. You can also tune in here at Bloggingstocks.com, where we'll be liveblogging the earnings report.

Visit AOL Money & Finance for more earnings coverage

Visit Bloggingstocks.com liveblog of the earnings call here.

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) implied volatility up into expected new family of iPod launch on 9/5.

AAPL is recently up $3.03 to $129.85 in pre-open trading. Goldman Sachs says, "Buy AAPL shares as new iPods add to its product cycle story." AAPL overall option implied volatility of 45 is above its 26-week average of 41 according to Track Data, suggesting slightly larger price movement.

Nokia (NYSE: NOK) volatility at 36 as NOK introduces four devices; NOK near 6-year high.

NOK introduced four devices optimized for entertainment, music and games. NOK closed at $30.01. OPCO says, "reiterate Buy – announces attractive multimedia products." NOK over all option implied volatility of 36 is above its 26-week average of 33 according to Track Data, suggesting slightly larger price risk.

Daily options Update is provided by Stock Specialist Paul Foster of theflyonthewall.com.

So much has been written about Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) as we witnessed the long lines to buy the iPhone on June 29. Numbers were circulating that Apple sold 700,000 units of the new, revolutionary device in the first weekend. Apple has yet to confirm that, but the anecdotal evidence is certainly pointing toward blow-out numbers. Apple stated a goal of 10 million units sold by year end 2008, now I am hearing from several sources that the goal will be raised to 13-14 million. What does all this mean for the stock and its march to $200?

Apple is such a unique company because it transcends the typical technology company profile. With its massive retail store system, 180 strong, Apple has DIRECT contact with its customers: soup to nuts, it controls the sale. Apple controls not only the principal purchases of iPhones, iPods, Macs, etc., but controls the accessory sales and is building its own database of customer names and critical information. That list is worth its weight in gold. It's called future add-on sales with very low sales and marketing expenditures.

With all the moving parts to the Apple story, analysts intuitively know that forward numbers are quite conservative and going higher. The question is do we wait until July 25 for the release of the June quarter results or take a gander right here, right now? The June quarter consensus estimates call for revenues of $5.28 billion and earnings per share (EPS) of $0.72 versus last year's June results of $4.3 billion and EPS of $0.54. For the September 30 fiscal year 2007, expectations are for total revenues of $23.7 billion and EPS of $3.56. September 30, 2008 fiscal year expectations call for revenues of $29.2 billion and EPS of $4.13.

Let me give you my prediction and projections.

We Americans are a funny lot. In another era, we valued thrift and fiscal conservatism. But no longer. These days we're all living La Vida Loca in the consumer economy.

Yep. We love to spend. And although there are some ominous signs on the horizon that the party may be coming to a close, the party ain't over yet. In the spirit of fun, AOL has a new feature celebrating the vices that represent the best ways to part with your hard-earned dollars. I couldn't help but agree with many of them. I opine on some additional money-wasters below:

Bottled Water
It's water. And last year we spent more on it than on iPods and movie tickets. This Fast Company piece says it all. Thirty years ago, the article says, bottled water was a blip on the business screen in this country. But tastes change, apparently. Last year, Americans spent some $15 billion on bottled water, from Poland Spring to upscale Fiji Water. The Coca-Cola Co.'s (NYSE: KO) Dasani and PepsiCo's (NYSE: PEP) Aquafina, the top-two bottled waters in the country, are admittedly just purified - and nicely-packaged tap water!

Cable - You're paying how much for cable each month? And you're getting....2,000 channels of crap, plus maybe some decent sports now and then. The cable companies promise something for everyone, but you still have to wade through somebody else's definition of entertainment to find your own. There's no bigger waste of time or money. You might be amazed at how much entertainment you can rent cheaply on DVDs, or even download from the internets. Try going to your favorite sports bar for the ESPN offerings you feel you can't miss, and enjoy them with like-minded buddies. Even more un-American? Try getting rid of your cable and availing yourself of all that sudden free time.

New Cars
Yeah, yeah we all love that new car smell, but that's about all you're getting when you plunk down your cash for a brand new vehicle. According to Edmunds.com, the average new care loses 12.2% of its value in the first year. Some cars depreciate even faster. A one or two-year-old vehicle can cost thousands less and still offer low mileage and reliability. It'll look good, too. And nobody ever needs to know you didn't buy it new off the lot. Now breath deep: Smell that? It's the scent of a good deal.

When the iPod launched it brought along with it a plethora of accessories that created an entire iPod ecology. There are custom grip cases, lanyards, FM transmitters, recorders, external power packs, speakers, and docks for the device. The iPod has driven digital media sales, and helped create the phenomena of podcasting. And now it is also noted as helping drive sales of hearing aid manufacturers.

Swiss company Phonak AG said in a recently that younger and younger people are now showing up with hearing damage from people jamming out hard with their headphones on. And that's sweet sounding news for them. They pushed a 32% rise in profit after tax over the last half year.

There is a big glut of people with damaged hearing expected to hit the hearing aid markets in the upcoming years as my generation proceeds to slowly blast itself out of our collective eardrums. Phonak will not be seeing fewer customers.

And Phonak is not the only audio company out there. You might be able to invest and benefit from the increasing audio issues of generation-iPod. Here are a handful of audio-related companies, as well as companies within larger conglomerates that you can invest in, to get you started:

Apple Computer, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) ended the day at $74.83, down 55 cents and 0.73%. The day after finding out that Steve Jobs did know about options backdating, and the stock more or less remained rather steady, all things considered. Yesterday I did predict a slump based on the news, but Steve Jobs apology to shareholders seems to have set the right tone. It was a much smaller market reaction than I would have thought. Couple that with CFO Anderson's resignation over the incident, and one has to wonder if this bump is over, or just beginning.

The market seems to be reacting the same way James Grossman at Thrivent Financial: "It doesn't change how many iPods or MacBook Pros they're going to sell." But with many news outlets only just now getting the news out, tomorrow will be another day to watch and see if the slump will continue.

My 18-month old iPod has started to fail to me. While in the UK earlier this month, my iPod (fourth generation 40 Gig) began to randomly shutdown and would not restart. "The vast majority of our customers are extremely happy with their iPods," Apple spokeswomen Natalie Kerrie said, adding that an iPod is designed to last four years.

On the contrary, a Chicago Tribune article recently exposed these problems and pointed to a study run by macintouch.com, a 12-year-old Apple website for Apple users. The study showed that more than 1,400 failed out of 9,000 iPods owned by some 4,000 respondents. The failure rate was reported at about 13.7% well above what Apple claims it should be. Gregg Radell, who started a company that repairs and refurbishes faulty iPods says, "the single weakest link" is the iPod's hard drive.

Regardless of these problems, Apple counts on its brand strength (and customer loyalty) to help weather the technical issues that plague its dominant music player. Most people, myself included, have grown so dependent on Apple's proprietary system that we are hard-pressed to switch.

Nonetheless, if the problems persist over the next couple years, look for consumers to weigh the merits of some of Apple's competitors' products, not the least of which is Microsoft's upcoming Zune.

Today saw a massive leap in Apple's stock price, a $6.40 leap, some 11.83%, ending the day at $60.50. On the evening of the 18th I noted that at $52.90, with basically one trading day to go, Apple was very attractively priced due to fears of back-to-school iPod sales forcing it down and the stock options scandal.

As Grant Robertson blogged earlier this morning, a 48% increase in profit, 1.3 million Macs moved, and 8.1 million iPods sold, made for some great numbers. Fears about the iPod? Sales were up 32% this quarter, and the next quarter is usually a more standout one for Apple. They seemed pretty psyched up in their conference call about a lot of really good numbers.

We mentioned it earlier, but Best Buy is dipping its toes into the pool to see if selling Apple products is going to be worth it. Right now it is only carrying iPod and iPod accessories, but in seven stores it is piloting selling Apple computers.

This isn't the first time Best Buy has tried this. Back in the late 90s you could find a laptop at Best Buy. In fact, that's where I got my first iBook from as a graduation gift. It was the last one offered in the store before that particular Best Buy pulled the plug.

Best Buy is having employees trained at Cupertino to sell the computers, which seems like a real hassle, but at least it means they won't be half as clueless as the original experiment where untrained Best Buy employees would reportedly stand in place and warn customers away from the Apple computers.

Speaking purely as a consumer, I'd rather just see more Apple stores. Best Buy, while wonderful for consumer electronics, didn't exactly swing in Apple's favor all that much in the 90s. It was a lackluster experience trying to talk to a Best Buy salesperson about an Apple. And in an age when I can still walk into an Apple computer store and hear customers asking Apple reps whether or not an Apple can check email, browse the web, or type documents, there is still a bit of an educational process that Apple needs in its outreach. I question whether Best Buy will provide that.

[Disclosure: I own Apple stock at the date of this post]

Apple finished the day at $57.47, up 27 cents. The news of the last couple days that piques most interest: the idea that Apple may carry movies on iTunes.

One reason this may be critical to visual media on Apple's iPods is a new program ABC is testing. The company posts TV shows online with advertising cut into the online media. Some 11 million people caught ABC primetime shows with advertising, and if this catches on, charging $1.99 a show via iTunes may not be as attractive a business model. Having a full movie available for download will be something Apple finds necessary if networks begin serving their own shows to the online world.

[Disclosure: I own Apple stock at the date of this post]

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster thinks Apple is going to have a heck of a fourth quarter this year. While iPods got a bump this Spring as graduation as gifts, and MacBook Pros sold somewhat better, Gene thinks this September is going to start out a heck of a sales season for Apple due to a number of reasons that will all line up at the end of summer.

The first is the back to school season. The second is the availability of two lines of MacBook laptops that analysts think are very attractive. Third is the effect of Apple's Boot Camp software which allows Windows to be run on a Mac. Last is the iPod 'halo effect,' which posits that people using iPods consider switching over after developing Apple brand loyalty.

With most of Apple's cheaper lines of machines on Intel chips, the lineup this summer is actually very strong for consumers. Plus, there are more Apple stores across the country every month. When I first used to study Apple as a stock, analysts were throwing out predictions of Apple's death and demise. Now they're talking about market share growth and 'breakouts.'

[Disclosure: I own Apple stock at the date of this post]

There's always a new indication that iPods and the technologies around the device are hitting the mainstream. In the curve of adoption, you don't expect manufacturing companies to be up there dabbling with the latest, hip, technology, but apparently National Semiconductors is giving every employee an iPod, or some 8,500 units.

Every employee will be receiving a 30 gigabyte iPod. Each one will be loaded with company podcasts and other such corporate communications, a cutting edge way to get everyone to sit up and pay attention. And that's 8,500 more people who will become quickly exposed to the idea of podcasting, using iTunes, and getting a look at Apple product.

And as a straightforward gift, I wouldn't have minded getting an iPod for any reason as an employee!

[Disclosure: I own Apple stock at the date of this post]

[photo credit: ugaldew]

[Link discovered via MicroPersuasion]