Apple Falls From Grace

Apple's stock woes Thursday mirrored much of the tech sector; the Investors also avoided tech stocks on Thursday, which didn't help. The Nasdaq was off 1% in recent trading.

Historically conservative, the company said sales for the March quarter should range between $4.8 billion to $4.9 billion, short of the $5.24 billion expected by analysts. Profit estimates of 54 cents to 56 cents also missed the 60 cents a share targeted by analysts.

"I think (traders) are trying to resolve the fact that they crushed estimates but issued lower guidance," says Jim Grossman, an equity analyst with Thrivent Asset Management, which holds Apple shares.

But he's not concerned about the outlook: "They're going to put numbers out there that they can beat."

Mac shipments grew 28% year over year in the December quarter, and some had expected the number to grow sequentially, but it was essentially flat at 1.6 million.

"I don't think it was negative, but I can see some people looking at it and saying, 'Maybe they should have done 1.7,'" Stice says. "I thought those numbers were good."

In the September quarter, investors were "giddy with excitement" over the Mac share gains, Grossman says, so there was some disappointment that they didn't sell more computers over the holidays.

"The Mac number was impressive in isolation. I think Wall Street had gotten a little ahead of itself in terms of (expectations)," Grossman says.