Small Apple Loss Better Than Expected -- Last week, Apple released financial results for its third quarter of 1996, recording a loss of $32 million. Though $32 million is a lot of money, it's important to note that Wall Street was expecting Apple to post a loss three to ten times larger than that, although Apple fudged its balance sheet a bit through a one-time sale of holdings in America Online and another one-time tax benefit. Nonetheless, the numbers caused many brokerage firms to upgrade their ratings of Apple stock, and confidence in Apple's new management seems to be growing, though Apple is careful to point out it doesn't expect to return to profitability until the second quarter of 1997. Nonetheless, it appears BusinessWeek's recent pronouncements of Apple's death may have been slightly exaggerated (see TidBITS-312). [GD]

<http://product.info.apple.com/pr/press.releases /1996/q4/960717.pr.rel.q396.html>