Apple earnings after the close..... Estimates Revenue: $77.4 billion, up slightly from $74.9 in the year-ago quarter. Adjusted EPS: $3.22, down slightly from $3.28 in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin: 38.39%, down from 40.1% in the year-ago quarter. iPhones sold: 76 million, up from 75 million in the year-ago quarter. iPhone average selling price: $688, down from $691 in the year-ago quarter. Apple made a few investments during the past quarter that you can expect Wall Street to ask about. Some things that Cook and CFO Luca Maestri may give additional information about: Why did Apple invest $1 billion into the Softbank Vision Fund? Why did Apple invest in a partnershipwith the world's largest wind power turbine maker in China? Did the Apple Watch have a big holiday quarter? Is demand for the iPhone softening in China? Does Apple still see India as its next big growth market? Estimates show it only sold 2.5 million iPhones in the entire country last year, and it's been striking deals with the government for special treatment.
The interests of the two groups (contrary to the impression widely given by the media) overlap to a large degree. Big profits on existing drug-lines pay for tomorrow's research and development. We're running out of "new antibiotics" and the costs of taking individual drugs all the way from research to marketing represent more hundreds of millions than ever before. If pharmaceutical profits are significantly reduced, there'll also be a concommitant future reduction in all the non-commercially-viable medicines that keep alive all the people with "extreme minority conditions" whose remedies don't need to be produced on a large scale. If society wants those to be developed too, and at the same time reduces drug firm profits, then it'll have to find another, different way to pay for them. I can't see that happening very easily, can you?
Fed announcement today, hmmmmm wonder what they will do????? Absolutely NOTHING!!!!!!! The feds excuse is to wait for Trump's new policies before making any rate hike decisions