Q3 Goes Gangbusters After-Hours: AAPL, CMG, PNRA, P

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) posted fiscal Q4 2016 earnings after the bell Tuesday, earnings of $1.67 per share beating expectations by a penny, on revenues of $46.9 billion a touch higher than the Zacks consensus estimate. iPhone sales of 45.5 million in the quarter was also a slight beat over estimates, though Mac sales slid under 5 million, whereas iPads came in-line at 9.3 million shipments.

Apple's main smartphone competitor, Samsung (KS:005930), has stopped production on its newest line, Galaxy Note 7, but its troubles happened toward the back end of the fiscal quarter; we expect iPhone sales in Q1 2017 to be even better. That said, gross margin estimates for Q1 have been lowered a bit to a range of 38-38.5%.

Chipotle (NYSE:CMG) reported Q3 earnings after the bell today, and negative comps having fallen further than analysts expected have led the disappointment on the bottom line as well as $1.04 billion missing the $1.09 billion estimate on the top line. Yearly comps fell 21.9%, whereas -18.1% had been expected. The company expects sales to fall to low-single digits. Chipotle is still working through severely negative comps following food contamination events in its recent past.

Panera Bread's (NASDAQ:PNRA) recent investment in digitized automation appears to have paid off, as the fast-casual restauranteur topped Q3 estimates on both top and bottom lines: $1.37 per share on quarterly sales of $682 million beat the $1.34 and $682 million, respectively. Year-over-year revenues grew more than 43%. This is at least the fifth straight quarter of a positive earnings surprise, even as same-store sales were below analysts' estimates. Shares are trading up 5.5%. For more on Panera's earnings, please click here.

Internet radio company Pandora (NYSE:P) has disappointed investors after the bell, though its posting of a loss of -19 cents per share (accounting for stock-based compensation and other BNRI) was better than the -21 cents expected. Revenues of $352 million in the quarter were well behind the Zacks consensus of $366.4 million. Listener hours were up, but not as high as analysts were looking for. Following the report, Pandora shares have tumbled 8.3%. Year over year sales are up, but earnings are down a whopping 950+%. For more on Pandora's earnings, click here.