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I'm trying to wrap my head around this 14-week quarter business. It's only mentioned in the press release and not the financials. Given that, I'm assuming that

I'm trying to wrap my head around this 14-week quarter business. It's only mentioned in the press release and not the financials. Given that, I'm assuming that EPS would have to be up 7.7% just to break even.

theboonies 3y ago
The most recent quarter (Q1 2024) is one week shorter than the prior year. I think the comment you made would make sense if it were the reverse. Regardless, it is interesting to hear how analysts account for this kind of thing…
jldugger 3y ago
> I'm trying to wrap my head around this 14-week quarter business. If there were exactly 52 weeks in a solar year, you could do 13 week quarters. There are 52 weeks and 1 day. So every few years you need a leap week to catch back up with the solar year. The reason to do this as 1 week every seven years and not one leap day is that you have weekly seasonality and keeping a round number of weeks makes quarters more comparable. But note that this quarter was 13 weeks, it was last year's that was 14, which is probably why the financials dont mention it?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
Kon-Peki 3y ago
In fiscal year 2023, Apple's first quarter ran from Sunday Sept 25 through Saturday Dec 31. That's 14 full 7-day weeks. In fiscal year 2024, Apple's first quarter ran from Sunday Oct 1 through Saturday Dec 30. That's 13 full 7-day weeks. They're just setting the beginning and ending of their quarters such that they only include full Sunday through Saturday weeks. If I had to guess, their first quarter in FY2025 will run from Sept 30 through Jan 3 and be 14 weeks.
- kshacker 3y ago
  > If I had to guess, their first quarter in FY2025 will run from Sept 30 through Jan 3 and be 14 weeks. If all years were 365 days, the extra week will come once every 7 years. But we have leap years, so the extra week comes either after 5 years (which includes 2 leap years) or after 6 years (which includes 1 leap year) ... or something like that, so I guess the first quarter in fiscal 2028-29 will have this feature ... could be 2027 as I do not how to count this too precisely, but definitely not before.
  - Kon-Peki 3y ago
    I’m sure that there is some SEC filing that you can find on Edgar that describes the exact procedure that they’re using. I’m not going to look :) I really don’t think that this has anything to do with leap years or even the normal number of days in the year. It looks like they’ve decided that all of their quarters start on a Sunday and they choose a Sunday that puts the first day of the (quarter) month in that week, unless the first day is after Wednesday (???) in which case they use the next week. It’s odd; I’ve never seen anything like that. But I’m pretty sure that as long as it’s “reasonable” and they are consistent about it, the SEC/IRS doesn’t care. If I were to guess as to why they’d do something like this, it would be that they run weekly financial reports on Sundays so the executives can look at them Monday morning. And their quarterly reports are aggregations of the weekly reports. But who knows!
    - jldugger 3y ago
      It's relatively common in the US[1] for to start weeks on Sundays. Much of what you see is probably derived from that. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Week#/media/File:First_Day_of_Week_World_Map.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Week#/media/File:First_Day_of_...
    - kshacker 3y ago
      Leap years tell how frequently this change occurs. If all years were 364 days this will never be an issue since there will not be an extra day. When a year is 365 days there is an extra day and the next years calendar starts on a day adjacent to previous year. Note that I am talking about calendar year not fiscal year. So if all years were leap years, calendar would get in balance after 7 years and after adjusting for 1 week in the fiscal year. But not all years are 365 days so sometimes the calendar shifts by 1 day and sometimes by 2 days. So whether the calendar gets into balance varies depending on where the leap year are with respect to when the calendar is adjusted. As my parent comment said, the last adjustment was in 23, it is not easy to say whether the next adjustment will be after 5 years or 6 years without looking at how many days get added year by year. It will definitely not be 7 years. For arguments sake, adjust the fiscal calendar in January 1st. If you did that in 2024, that right there is a leap year, so you gain / lose 2 days, then 1 day each in 25, 26, 27, and then 2 days in 2028. Net 7 days so you adjust calendar in 2029 - 5 years later. But now the calendar has started in 2029, so adjust 1 day in 29, 30, and 31, even 2 days in 32, even 1 each in 33 and 34. So you adjust after 6 years. There are more options too but not worth analyzing each.
valleyer 3y ago
You've got it backwards.
- ericpauley 3y ago
  Good catch!

theboonies 3y ago

The most recent quarter (Q1 2024) is one week shorter than the prior year. I think the comment you made would make sense if it were the reverse. Regardless, it is interesting to hear how analysts account for this kind of thing…

jldugger 3y ago

> I'm trying to wrap my head around this 14-week quarter business. If there were exactly 52 weeks in a solar year, you could do 13 week quarters. There are 52 weeks and 1 day. So every few years you need a leap week to catch back up with the solar year. The reason to do this as 1 week every seven years and not one leap day is that you have weekly seasonality and keeping a round number of weeks makes quarters more comparable. But note that this quarter was 13 weeks, it was last year's that was 14, which is probably why the financials dont mention it?

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

Kon-Peki 3y ago

In fiscal year 2023, Apple's first quarter ran from Sunday Sept 25 through Saturday Dec 31. That's 14 full 7-day weeks. In fiscal year 2024, Apple's first quarter ran from Sunday Oct 1 through Saturday Dec 30. That's 13 full 7-day weeks. They're just setting the beginning and ending of their quarters such that they only include full Sunday through Saturday weeks. If I had to guess, their first quarter in FY2025 will run from Sept 30 through Jan 3 and be 14 weeks.

kshacker 3y ago
> If I had to guess, their first quarter in FY2025 will run from Sept 30 through Jan 3 and be 14 weeks. If all years were 365 days, the extra week will come once every 7 years. But we have leap years, so the extra week comes either after 5 years (which includes 2 leap years) or after 6 years (which includes 1 leap year) ... or something like that, so I guess the first quarter in fiscal 2028-29 will have this feature ... could be 2027 as I do not how to count this too precisely, but definitely not before.
- Kon-Peki 3y ago
  I’m sure that there is some SEC filing that you can find on Edgar that describes the exact procedure that they’re using. I’m not going to look :) I really don’t think that this has anything to do with leap years or even the normal number of days in the year. It looks like they’ve decided that all of their quarters start on a Sunday and they choose a Sunday that puts the first day of the (quarter) month in that week, unless the first day is after Wednesday (???) in which case they use the next week. It’s odd; I’ve never seen anything like that. But I’m pretty sure that as long as it’s “reasonable” and they are consistent about it, the SEC/IRS doesn’t care. If I were to guess as to why they’d do something like this, it would be that they run weekly financial reports on Sundays so the executives can look at them Monday morning. And their quarterly reports are aggregations of the weekly reports. But who knows!
  - jldugger 3y ago
    It's relatively common in the US[1] for to start weeks on Sundays. Much of what you see is probably derived from that. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Week#/media/File:First_Day_of_Week_World_Map.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Week#/media/File:First_Day_of_...
  - kshacker 3y ago
    Leap years tell how frequently this change occurs. If all years were 364 days this will never be an issue since there will not be an extra day. When a year is 365 days there is an extra day and the next years calendar starts on a day adjacent to previous year. Note that I am talking about calendar year not fiscal year. So if all years were leap years, calendar would get in balance after 7 years and after adjusting for 1 week in the fiscal year. But not all years are 365 days so sometimes the calendar shifts by 1 day and sometimes by 2 days. So whether the calendar gets into balance varies depending on where the leap year are with respect to when the calendar is adjusted. As my parent comment said, the last adjustment was in 23, it is not easy to say whether the next adjustment will be after 5 years or 6 years without looking at how many days get added year by year. It will definitely not be 7 years. For arguments sake, adjust the fiscal calendar in January 1st. If you did that in 2024, that right there is a leap year, so you gain / lose 2 days, then 1 day each in 25, 26, 27, and then 2 days in 2028. Net 7 days so you adjust calendar in 2029 - 5 years later. But now the calendar has started in 2029, so adjust 1 day in 29, 30, and 31, even 2 days in 32, even 1 each in 33 and 34. So you adjust after 6 years. There are more options too but not worth analyzing each.

valleyer 3y ago

You've got it backwards.

ericpauley 3y ago
Good catch!