Here's the good news: when Fred Anderson announced Apple's first quarter financial results yesterday, it turned out that the company actually lost less than a quarter of a billion dollars excluding one-time charges and gains. Only $247 million of red ink? Woo-hoo! Break out the Yoo-Hoo and the Chex Party Mix, throw some bass-heavy generic dance music on the stereo, and get down and funky with your bad self!

Just kidding. But we admit, we were rather taken aback when we saw the effect that Apple's sizeable loss had on its stock price in after-hours trading: it went up. Why, if only Apple had managed to lose, say, half a billion dollars this quarter instead of that paltry $247 million, we bet that AAPL would be trading above $20 a share right about now. Sadly, it wasn't meant to be, and worse yet, we can't even expect it to happen next quarter; Fred flat-out told the analysts that when he does this again in three months' time, he expects to report an actual profit. Geez, maybe we should sell now, before that black ink sends our shares into the toilet.

Of course, some people who pretend to know about this big-business, high-finance stuff will tell you that Apple's stock is on the rise after that massive quarterly loss due primarily to three factors. First of all, yes, Apple lost money-- but no more than it said it would, which, to the typically Apple-hostile investment world, may have come as a pleasant surprise. Secondly, Apple's cash position actually appears to have gotten a bit better; the company's got over $4 billion of mad money to play with. And then there's the channel inventory, which was hovering at a staggering eleven weeks at the beginning of December, and which is now reportedly in a much saner five-and-a-half-weeks range. There's also that little thing about a return to profitability in the current quarter, which, for some reason, some people insist is a positive thing. But after seeing Apple's stock rise following its first quarterly loss in three years, we know better, right, people?

Actually, do you want to know the real reason Apple's stock went up? It's because of who wasn't present at the conference call: one mercurial mutha who goes by the name Big Steve. If you recall, Steve sat in on the last two conference calls in an effort to spin the bad news in a positive direction. Instead of calming people, though, the very fact that Apple felt Steve had to be there in the first place made Wall Street jittery. This time around, since Fred didn't need to call in Big Steve for backup, heck, how bad could things really be?

So that's where we stand: Apple blew $247 million in three months' time, but inventory is down, cash is up, and the company still expects a small profit in Q2. Meanwhile, faithful viewer Bob Nies won our quarterly Beat The Analysts contest, and while Apple's mopping up all that red ink, Bob will soon be basking in the radiant light of the prize of his choice from the Baffling Vault of Antiquity™. Congratulations, Bob! And the rest of you should check out the contest results for factoids, tidbits, and an interesting lesson in AtAT Viewer Optimism.