Analysts Cautious About Apple's Holiday

Yahoo’s reports that SoundView, a financial analysis firm, is cautious on AAPL, “citing channel data for Oct which suggests that AAPL consumer sell-thru trailed overall PC market, and may indicate weak Christmas.” During Apple’s Fiscal 4Q (October) quarterly conference call, the company was extremely cautious about this holiday season, perhaps justifying the lack of new iMac machines during the traditionally consumer strong holiday period. One other possibility is that much consumer demand has shifted away from other the retailers providing the company with its sell-through data and moved to the now dominant Apple Stores, who would most likely not provide their sell through data to analysts. Still, it is not hard to imagine a weak quarter with the older line of iMac systems.