Chalk up another one for Fred and the gang; according to an Apple press release, last quarter marked Apple's eleventh consecutive one in the black. And by our count, that makes it twelve consecutive Street-beating quarters, proving once again that underestimating Apple is a national pastime on par with baseball and filing frivolous lawsuits. Oh yeah, the numbers-- Apple posted a profit of $200 million; however, as per the tradition, a sizeable chunk of that was due to the sale of another batch of ARM stock, so Apple's real profit was $163 million excluding one-time charges and gains. Not too shabby, right? Especially since those know-it-all analysts were predicting about $20 million less.

Don't go all goofy just yet, though-- the news wasn't all good. According to ZDII Inter@ctive Investor, while Apple's Q3 sales were $1.83 billion-- up 17% from the same quarter a year ago-- that number was sadly a bit lower from the $1.9 billion that analysts were expecting. (Sounds like iMac sales were even softer than anyone anticipated.) As a result, Apple's stock fell almost four whole points in after-hours trading. Hopefully when Steve struts his Expo stuff, he'll announce enough kick-ass gear to drive that price back up again.

But anyway, ours is not to analyze the ins and outs of Apple's quarterly results and consider their cumulative effect on the company's stock price; our job is to congratulate those Beat The Analysts contestants who trounced the bigwigs on Wall Street with their estimates. So, without further ado, let's all give a big hand to Eric Ku and Gabriel Matthews, both of whom guessed Apple's Q3 results on the nose. Way to go, guys! They'll be hearing from the AtAT Prize Patrol soon. Meanwhile, be sure to take a look at the final results, which contain lots of interesting little factoids about how AtAT viewers did better than Wall Street. Thanks to all of you who took the time to enter. And don't be bummed that you lost-- there's always next quarter.