Apple Stock

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) continued breaking records last week when it closed out October on Friday with an all time high stock price of $108.00 per share. The trend is continuing, as share prices are at $109.72 as of this writing. The company will spread the wealth next week when it distributes dividends to all shareholders of record as of market close on November 10. The dividends, which at $0.47 per share amount to a quarterly dividend record of $2.8 billion, will be payed out on Thursday, November 13.

Last Monday, Apple CEO Tim Cook revealed to the Wall St. Journal that Apple Pay activations reached 1 million in just the first 72 hours of its launch, making it the largest contactless payment system in the U.S.

Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) stock slipped a bit last week, despite Thursday's introduction of the iPad Air 2, iPad mini 3 and 5K Retina iMac. After closing the previous week at $100.73, share prices steadily declined, hitting a low close of $96.26 on Thursday. They rallied a bit and finished the week at $97.67.

The uptick should continue this week, following Apple's Q4 FY 2014 earnings report, which will be released later today, 5:00 PM EDT, 2 PM PDT.

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster summed up Wall St.'s expectations in a note to investors. He believes Apple will announce earnings of around $40 billion, which would be at the high end of the company's Q4 guidance. Looking to the holiday quarter, he expects Apple to generate revenue in the $65 - $68 billion range, with margins of 38 to 38.5 percent.

Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) highly anticipated wearable may face an uphill battle in Europe where, according to a survey, the populace doesn't appear to be interested in the Apple Watch, at least not nearly as much as Chinese and American consumers. The indifference likely stems from the fact that some of the most highly touted features of the device are old news in the Old World.

German market research group, GfK, conducted the survey, asking 1,000 smartphone owners from each market (Germany, UK, China, US, South Korea) about their interest in various smartwatch functions, assuming the device was completely secure.

The iPhone 6 has already seen record breaking sales since its September launch, and the numbers are poised to jump even higher as Apple expands to 36 new countries by the end of October, bringing the total to 69 countries/territories. The company plans for its flagship phone to be available in 115 countries by the end of the year.

Next up, and by far the most important as far as sales numbers are concerned, is China, whose telecom providers began offering pre-orders last Friday. If the estimates are correct, 20 million units have been pre-ordered already, which is twice the amount of iPhones that sold in the U.S. over the launch weekend. Both models will

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) share prices continued to hover around $100 over the course of last week's trading. Tuesday saw the low close of the week at $98.75, but prices rallied from there and closed at $100.73 on Friday. There could be an uptick this Thursday following Apple's media event. The company is expected to, at the very least, unveil the next generation iPad Air and a 27 inch Retina display iMac. OS X Yosemite will likely be released to the public as well.

Perhaps the confidence in the latter half of the week resulted from Carl Icahn's extreme optimism. In a letter to Tim Cook titled "Sale: Apple Shares at Half Price," the billionaire investor urged Apple to buy back more stock at a faster pace. His reasoning lies in the fact that Icahn Enterprises' analysis of Apple concludes that the stock is "dramatically undervalued." By their numbers, Apple stock should be trading at around $203 per share.