Trading Apple Today (AAPL)

I've already written about how to trade Apple AAPL if something were to happen to Steve Jobs and unfortunately it came true. Luckily the worst hasn't happened, and all of our prayers and thoughts are with him and his family at this time. I said in the earlier column, that Jobs and Apple will be strong for years to come: "Jobs is as important to Apple as Warren Buffett is to Berkshire Hathaway BRK, so I would expect a couple of days of mourning and some selling in the stock, but I think this is only a blip. Apple has a strong pipeline of products, including the iPhone 5, the Verizon VZ iPhone, iPad 2, and refreshes to the Mac and iPod lines for years. When Verizon gets its Long Term Evolution (LTE) network fully operational around the country, I would expect to see Apple launch additional products for LTE. Then there's the Mac App Store. Gartner thinks this market could grow to $25 billion + in just a couple of years, up from $4 billion today." Obviously we're seeing Apple down in the pre-market, losing about 5% or so. When I first wrote about it about ten days ago, I thought we would see a couple of days of selling pressure, despite the fact Apple doesn't really trade at a premium, at about 14 times 2011 earnings. I wasn't expecting it to come so close to earnings, which makes me revisit my thesis. I believe we see an absolute monster quarter from Apple, led by iPhone and iPad strength. Research firm ISI said it expects revenues around $25 billion and earnings of $5.60-$5.70 per share. Consensus is $24.4 billion and $5.39 in earnings. I believe Apple could top ISI's targets. That's how strong this quarter shaped up, at least from what I've seen, heard and read. Any weakness today could be wiped out after hours. Watch Apple's stock throughout the day to see how it acts. If it opens up low and continues to strengthen throughout the day, my thesis gets validated. Long live Apple, and long live Steve Jobs. Disclosure: no position in names mentioned