Apple Falls From Grace

Updated from 12:45 p.m. EST

A stellar first-quarter earnings report wasn't enough to prevent a pullback in Apple (AAPL Quote) shares on Thursday, as the company's traditional conservative guidance prompted traders to take profits on a stock that had climbed 25% in three weeks.

The stock was recently off 5.5% to $89.68.

"I thought it was a terrific quarter," says Standard & Poor's equity analyst Richard Stice. "Obviously, the iPod numbers were off the charts. I thought you could see [a number] as high as 17 million, but clearly they did much better than that." ...