Four Things to Follow in Apple's Earnings Announcement (AAPL) Off-Topic

From PC World:

Apple will announce its quarterly earnings Monday afternoon. As always, you can follow Apple's 2 p.m. PT conference call with Wall Street analysts with live coverage of the event at Macworld.com.

What can you expect from chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer, chief operating officer Tim Cook, and any other Apple executives who join in on Monday's conference call? As you would expect before an earnings announcement, Apple has given no indication of the quarter that was. But a scan of recent headlines and a little historical context can give us a pretty good idea of what might come up when Apple gives us a quarterly look at its financial picture.

Recession? What recession?

You may have read something about the global economy not being its usual robust self. The picture is certainly less grim than it was a year ago when the near-collapse of the banking system made things look so dire that Steve Jobs made a rare conference call appearance to outline Apple's plan for weathering a recession, but conditions are hardly ideal for a consumer electronics company to thrive.

And yet, Apple has done exactly that during its 2009 fiscal year. The company announced a record profit for its first quarter back in January and its third-quarter sales and profits were the best of any non-holiday shopping quarter in Apple's history. Just about the only hiccup was Apple's fiscal second quarter, when Mac sales fell 3 percent, but even then, the company turned a profit on strong iPhone and iPod sales.

Apple's performance in the past year has confounded analysts to the point where they're expecting another strong quarter out of Cupertino....MORE