Apple guidance could be limited this afternoon

"If Apple doesn’t file its restated options-backdating-related quarterly financial statements with the SEC by the time it releases its earnings, it [could] wind up reporting an abbreviated version with no guidance," MarketWatch's Herb Greenberg wrote in a blog posting.

Greenberg makes reference to a report by Bob Renck of R.L. Renck & Co., which rates Apple a "Sell." According to the report, when companies are not current in their filings, they are "severely restricted" in the comments they can make about current or future results.

Renck said conversations with other companies that have been in a similar situation suggests that "while we might expect comments on sales and perhaps even gross margins, it is difficult to imagine Apple management being in a position to comment on net income or comparisons versus the prior year below the gross profit line."

"That’s all moot, of course," notes Greenberg, "if the financial statements are filed before or with the earnings release." Assuming Apple does file, he's anxious to see if the company will finally changed the way it discloses its segment operating results.

So far, Apple has chosen to report segment results pretty much the way it always has: by breaking out operating profits by the regions in which it operates, not products, for which it only gives sales.

That may have been fine when most of Apple's sales came from Macintosh computers, making a separate breakout for analytical purposes irrelevant, Renck recently told clients. He notes that computer sales now trail sales of iPods, which as of the first six months of Apple's fiscal year accounted for 46 percent of total revenue.

According to the analyst, accounting standards require that segments generating more than 10 percent of a company's revenue be broken out by several metrics, including sales, profit and assets. The iPod first passed that threshold in early 2004, he noted.

A statement from the SEC indicates that segment information should be broken out unless "separate reporting of segment information will not add significantly to an investor's understanding of an enterprise [because] its operating segments have characteristics so similar that they can be expected to have essentially the same future prospects."

Renck went on to say he believes Apple should do a separate breakout for computers, iPods, music-related products, peripherals and software and service. "Their business has changed and they should be doing it differently," he said. "Transparency is what everyone wants, and they don't want to be transparent."

Apple declined to explain why it doesn't provide more financial information on different business segments, saying it doesn't comment on analyst reports.

However, Greenberg in his postings recalled a recent Apple earnings conference call, where several analysts specifically asked about the iPod's gross margin; Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer responded to one, saying, "... Our competitors would just love to know what our specific gross margins are ... and we just don't want to help them."