Looking up the ticker with the regulator···
0s · usually 20–30 seconds for a cold read
Looking up the ticker with the regulator···
0s · usually 20–30 seconds for a cold read
Apple Inc.
Rule-based classification of fundamentals against the sector. Not a price forecast and not investment advice.
Strong business, analyst optimism unconfirmed
Get notified when we ship meaningful updates. No spam, no daily noise.
3 of 5 met · composite in line with peers
Business quality, valuation against the sector, and position in the 52-week range — whether they line up or not.
Strong fundamentals
Profitability
3/4
Debt & liquidity
3/3
Efficiency
2/2
Capital efficiency sits at the core of the Apple story: ROE runs at 171.4%, some +434% above the sector median, and ROIC at 96.7% tracks a similar gap. Debt/EBITDA of 0.5× is -41% below the sector median, so the balance sheet carries little structural strain despite the scale of buybacks that drive those returns. The F-Score of 8/9 confirms the picture — profitability, leverage, and efficiency sub-scores all read well. Growth is the softer side: revenue grew 6.4% year over year against a sector median of 11.8%, and EPS grew 22.7% versus the median 31.1%. The forward PEG is stretched, and the market models earnings growth that the realized three-year EPS CAGR of {{value:eps_cagr_3y}} in SEC filings has not matched — consensus carries the optimistic bias the literature documents. P/B of 62.0× sits +525% above the sector median, pricing in returns that are real but that growth has so far not kept pace with.
| Ticker | Name | F-Score | ROE | Revenue YoY | Op. margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AAPL | Apple Inc. | 8/9 | 171% | +6% |
Quarter-by-quarter classification · a retrospective read by the current logic · not a price forecast
Rule-based classification of fundamentals against the sector. Not a price forecast and not investment advice. The method did not see these quarters in real time; this is the current logic applied to past reports.
Priced close to current earnings; analyst sentiment is steady; has mostly beaten consensus.
Price against next year's expected earnings. The forward P/E already carries analyst optimism — read it alongside the “Versus consensus” line.
A forward P/E below the current one means the market expects earnings to grow; above it, to fall. The historical growth is realized figures from SEC filings, not a forecast.
The three-month change in the share of positive analyst ratings. This is sentiment, not an earnings-estimate revision, and not a call to act.
When Apple reports on 2026-10-28, track revenue year over year alongside return on invested capital, which currently sits at 4.9× the sector median. A sustained ROIC above 19% would confirm that the profitability signals driving the F-Score 8/9 remain intact rather than compressing toward the sector norm.
In the annual report's Management Discussion section, look for disclosures on share repurchase cadence and short-term liquidity — the current ratio of 1.30 sits 31% below the sector median, a gap worth understanding in the context of Apple's debt-to-EBITDA of 0.92×. The risk factors section will clarify whether that liquidity position is a structural choice or a constraint.
Pick two or three companies from the alphabetical table in section 06 and line up one metric — P/B or ROIC are natural candidates given Apple's P/B of 9.93× and its outsized return profile. No company in the table is ranked; the exercise is to gauge where Apple's valuation premium sits relative to others carrying similar or different profitability characteristics.
Steps you can check yourself, based on the figures in this brief.
Piotroski F-Score: nine binary tests of financial strength from the annual report. A ✓ marks a test passed, a dot (·) a test failed.
Over 4 years: +20%-11%+9%-9%
Over 4 years: 0.760.760.640.54
Over 4 years: +8%-3%+2%+6%
The context on the right shows how each figure compares with the sector median. The trend below tracks the change over recent fiscal years.
Beat consensus in 8 of 8 recent quarters — the company clears estimates regularly (consensus is often set conservatively).
Last quarter's EPS against consensus, plus the estimated date of the next report.
| 32% |
| ACN | Accenture | 4/9 | 26% | +7% | 15% |
| ADBE | Adobe | 7/9 | 55% | +11% | 37% |
| AMAT | Applied Materials | 6/9 | 36% | +4% | 29% |
| AMD | Advanced Micro Devices | 7/9 | 7% | +34% | 11% |
| AVGO | Broadcom | 7/9 | 43% | +24% | 40% |
| CRM | Salesforce | 7/9 | 12% | +10% | 20% |
| CSCO | Cisco | 8/9 | 22% | +5% | 21% |
| IBM | IBM | 6/9 | 35% | +8% | — |
| INTC | Intel | 6/9 | -0% | -0% | -4% |
| INTU | Intuit | 8/9 | 20% | +16% | 26% |
| MSFT | Microsoft | 6/9 | 34% | +18% | 47% |
| NOW | ServiceNow | 4/9 | 15% | +21% | 14% |
| NVDA | NVIDIA | 3/9 | 101% | +65% | 60% |
| ORCL | Oracle | 5/9 | 54% | +17% | 31% |
| TXN | Texas Instruments | 7/9 | 30% | +13% | 34% |
A sample of 16 companies in the sector including the target, alphabetical, unranked. Data from the latest SEC annual reports.
Rule-based classification of fundamentals against the sector. Not a price forecast and not investment advice.
A simplified retrospective read: no analyst forecast (not available historically); the source is the annual report as of the date, so neighbouring quarters can rest on the same data. Quarters with the same classification in a row are merged into one row — each row is one change in the read, not a separate quarter. One ticker is an illustration of the classification logic, not statistics. How we calculate →
The last few quarters are recent context, not a fixed rate. Consensus for near quarters is set low, so companies clear it routinely; over long horizons the forecasts run the other way, too high.
A description of what the market and analysts expect. Not a price forecast and not investment advice. Analyst forecasts run systematically optimistic over long horizons — read them with that discount.