Ellington

The NASDAQ eagerly awaited reports from two stalwart tech stocks after the bell rang today. Apple offered up one of its best quarters in its history, but with unsteady guidance for fiscal Q1 2009. (Apple's first fiscal quarter of each year corresponds with the holiday quarter, calendar Q4 2008.) Apple posted revenue of $7.9 billion and a profit of $1.14 billion, compared to $6.22 billion and net quarterly profit of $904 million in the year ago quarter.

Sales of Mac units reached a record high, up 21 percent over a year ago (2.611 million units; which also compares favorably to the 2.45 million in previous quarter) and iPod sales were up 8 percent (that's 11 million iPods, about the same last quarter).

Apple sold nearly 6.9 million iPhone "3G" models in the quarter (year ago: 1.1 million), a huge increase that more than doubled the number of iPhones now on the streets. Apple CEO Steve Jobs said "we sold more phones than RIM," referring the to maker of the Blackberry smartphone.

Apple also reported "non GAAP" results of $11.68 billion in sales revenue and $2.44 billion in profits. To conform to GAAP standards, Apple amortizes the sale price of iPhones and Apple TV units over the "life" of the product (24 months) to account for the fact that the products are offered continuous software updates and upgrades...in other words, because the products continue to cost them something even after their sold. So, Apple officially reported lower revenues in this quarter compared to the amount of cash brought in.

Apple ended its 2008 fiscal year with an extraordinary $25 billion in cash reserves and no long-term debt.

As for guidance for next quarter, Apple was somewhat unclear. Peter Oppenheimer, Apple's CFO said, "Looking ahead, visibility is low and forecasting is challenging, and as a result we are going to be prudent in predicting the December quarter. We are providing a wide range for our guidance, targeting revenue of $9.0 to $10.0 billion and earnings per diluted share between $1.06 and $1.35."

Revenues at Yahoo! were $1.786 billion in the quarter, about 1 percent up from the year-ago quarter. Net income, however was down considerably at $51 million compared to $151 million for the year ago quarter.

While these numbers matched industry forecasts, Yahoo announced it would cut at least 10% of its workforce according to CNN Money. Yahoo had 15,700 employees at the end of the third quarter. The story notes that Yahoo has turned down a number of takeover offers by Microsoft, vowing to fight on for revenues on its own.