It’s that time of year again when Apple holds their quarterly earnings call. As usual, this call was full of interesting and large numbers. To start, Apple was able to reach $20.34 billion in revenue this quarter, with $4.31 billion in profits. These numbers were helped by the surprising amount of products Apple sold this quarter. Here they are: 3.89 million Macs, 14.1 million iPhones, 9.05 million iPods, and 4.19 million iPads. Wow.

If you bought AAPL stock in its young stages, you’ve probably been pretty happy with it lately. However, today you should be even more delighted. After hanging out in the high 200s for quite a while, Apple’s stock has now made the jump to over $300 a share. Actually, if you look at the stock graph over time, you can see that AAPL rose pretty fast from August to September, and then, after a slight misstep, skyrocketed to above $300.

Steve Jobs must be one happy camper this week. AAPL stock owners must be even happier. Apple’s stock slowly climbed higher and higher, peaking at a number that was enough to value the company as the second highest on the market at $267.5 billion. Apple’s stock was at $292.76 a share at that time, but has since slipped back down to $288.92. This again puts the company at a $263.9 billion, just below the $265.5 billion valuation of PetroChina. Exxon Mobil is still at the top of the charts.

It seems that even in this economy, there’s no slowing Apple down. The company announced its quarterly earnings Monday, revealing that its net income rose 47 percent. The earnings, which were driven by record Mac computer and iPhone sales, sent Apple shares surging 7 percent in extended trading to an all-time high.

In Apple HQ, the phrase “credit crunch” is seldom heard. Why? Because again, Apple has had its best non-holiday quarter to date. Despite fewer iPods leaving the shelves, sales in Macintosh computers and iPhones were the highest yet for the Spring quarter, which saw revenue of $8.34 billion and a net profit for the quarter of $1.23 billion. As technology moves forward, it is clear that Apple intends to be leading.

When Steve Jobs first took his medical leave a few months ago, Apple shares dropped as the Internet went crazy with the story. However, these past couple months have been relatively quiet about it, partially due to respect for him and his families’ privacy. As Steve Jobs will be back soon, so is the news about him. Business Insider is reminding us that Apple’s stock is up 64% from when Jobs took his leave to around the $140 it was at the time that he left.

This past Wednesday, Apple announced its financial results for its fiscal 2009 first quarter ended December 27, 2008, in which they reported the best quarterly revenue and earnings in Apple History. The company sold 2,524,000 Mac computers, a record 22,727,000 iPods, and 4,363,000 iPhones. This amounted to the record revenue of $10.17 billion and record net quarterly profit of $1.61 billion, or $1.78 per diluted share, all of which seems to counter news of Microsoft and Intel announcing layoffs amid a drop in profits, but does that really mean Apple is “recession proof?”

It’s pretty much a foregone conclusion that when negative news of Apple CEO Steve Jobs crosses the wire, Apple stock is going to drop. That’s been the case today upon news that Jobs is taking a health leave from Apple until the end of June. Jobs will remain CEO, but has put Tim Cook in charge of day to day operations and will be “… involved in major strategic decisions …” but that hasn’t prevented Apple stock from dropping 2.71% as of 4:00 p.m. today.

And so it goes with Wall Street. Half an hour before Apple’s MacBook event today, Apple was trading at $109.80 (down 0.46). We’re now half an hour after the event, and AAPL is down -5.39 to 104.87. This tends to be the trend with Wall Street, though where Apple almost always drops after a keynote. more »

Late last week, a false report that Steve Jobs had been rushed to the hospital following a heart attack sent lemming investors to sell AAPL, driving the stock price down to $97.07, its lowest since before the original iPhone release. Now the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) is looking into the report as intentional stock more »