Apple (AAPL) set a new record during the holiday period by selling an all time best 74.5 million iPhones. Adding fuel to the fire, Mac sales and App store revenue hit new highs too.

The result was a quarter laced with jaw dropping numbers. Apple pulled in $18 billion in net profit, and global sales reached $57.6 billion.

In the aftermath of the best quarter in the history of business, the expectations around Apple’s next quarter continue to rise. The consensus estimates from Wall Street and Estimize are both surging ahead of Apple’s 2nd fiscal quarter earnings release scheduled for Monday afternoon.

No one expects Apple to top its holiday period performance, but higher earnings estimates are coming in each day. Since Apple’s last earnings report in January, the earnings consensus from Estimize has climbed 6% from $2.13 per share to $2.26. Similarly, Wall Street has raised its EPS forecast from $2.09 to $2.17. 

The Estimize revenue consensus has increased from $55.41 billion to $57.18 billion and the Wall Street sales forecast has risen from $55.26 billion to $56.07 billion. Both of these estimates are well above Apple’s guidance of $53.50 billion.

When consensus estimates flourish before an earnings report, it’s often a bullish indicator. Furthermore, when the Estimize consensus is higher than the Wall Street consensus, on average stocks display a positive pre-earnings drift over the 3 days prior to the report. As expected Apple is outperforming the broader market in midday trading Thursday. 

To read the academic justification for the claims in this article and learn what happens to stocks after they report earnings, visit Estimize.com/api.

(Photo Credit: The Climate Group)