iPhone 5 Launch … Is Apple Too Tied to Wall Street?

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) is supposedly coming out with the iPhone 5 on September 12. After the company recently missed its latest earnings report, we cannot help but wonder yet again if the company is too concerned with its share price and too concerned about what Wall St. thinks of it.

By coming in with a September launch, Apple would get to count the iPhone sales THIS quarter and therefore THIS fiscal year too. If you look through the last earnings release, the big shortfall was due to iPhone purchases being delayed ahead of the next product launch. If Apple chooses to wait until October, then it could have another soft quarter on Wall St., and it just so happens that this current quarter marks its fiscal year-end as well.

Imagine if Apple waited until October or even November to launch the iPhone 5. The huge sales uptick could just be tied to Christmas and holiday gift spending. The investment community would not like that. Imagine if analysts just said, “Apple is now a holiday story.”

Apple has to figure out how to mitigate the international and currency risk now that more than 60% of the company’s sales come from international markets.

Another “close tie to Wall Street” goes back to the Steve Jobs mantra for how to deal with Wall St.: underpromise and overdeliver. By constantly setting a low bar to beat, the already impressive growth of the company just looks that much better to Wall St. investors at most reports. Over the past five years, Apple has about a 90% track record on beating earnings. CEO Tim Cook has some hard shoes to fill here.

Wall St. is eager to get the iPhone 5, even if this should technically be the iPhone 6 since the iPhone 4S was the iPhone 5. To show just how eager it is, the shares are up 1.4% at $603.51 in the premarket.

Piper Jaffrey’s Gene Munster is often considered the axe analyst when it comes to Wall St. and Apple. He recently said that buying after bad news almost always generates quick profits for investors. Now shares are higher all over again than when the company gave the disappointing earnings results.

With all of the employee stock options and with insiders having so much of their net worth tied to Apple’s success, it is easy to say that Apple is tied to Wall St. Still, the question is whether or not it is too tied to Wall St.

JON C. OGG