A Big Night For Apple: A Few Ways To Profit From Poor Earnings

All eyes are on Apple's (AAPL) earnings report tonight. There is growing chatter that AAPL, and tech's performance as a whole could dictate the entire direction of the market for the next few months. Google (GOOG) reported an earnings beat, and investors have responded favorably. Thus far, about 16% of companies in the S&P 500 have reported earnings, and in my opinion have been slightly better than expected overall, considering the economy is still weak. However, with the S&P 500 near 5 years' highs, there is a lot more risk to the downside, in my opinion. We have not seen a market correction in sometime. With all eyes on AAPL tonight, if we see some real bad news out of the company and from the remaining companies this earnings season, investors may want to consider taking some bearish action should market panic ensue. The media will be all over the report, so after hours expect the stock to move. The numbers to look for are of course the top and bottom lines, which consensus estimates are for $54.69 billion in revenue and earnings per share of $13.42. Other items to watch are the margins, which AAPL has guided to be 38% gross margin, 28.4% for operating margin and 21.5% for net profit margin. Naturally, analysts are more bullish, so beating these guided figures is paramount. Finally, look for unit sales of iPhones, iPads, Macs and iPods. A beat on all the numbers could spark the stock to....READ MORE