Even with record sales, Apple's earnings report may disappoint

If all goes according to plan Wednesday, Apple Inc. will report record revenue. The company will reveal that it sold more iPhones than in any previous quarter. And it will confirm that it hauled in another boatload of cash to swell its overflowing coffers.

In other words, Apple's earnings have all the makings of a colossal disaster.

That's because no matter how mind-blowing its performance, there is growing concern among investors that Apple's remarkable run of smartphone dominance is coming to an end. Although analysts' estimates for the company are all over the map, there is general agreement that Apple will not grow at nearly the same pace as it has over the last five years.

But after months of speculation and countless rumors that has helped drive the company's stock down 28% from its September peak, there is still widespread disagreement about how much that growth will slow and whether investors should be alarmed.

With observers desperate to finally hear what Apple executives have to say, the company's earnings report scheduled after the market closes Wednesday has become one of its most pivotal and highly anticipated in years.

Ben Reitzes, an analyst at Barclays, sent a recent note about Apple's earnings to clients under the title "Preparing for the Most Important Conference Call in Years."

"We believe that investor sentiment is quite negative right now for Apple, with significant concerns around demand trends for the iPhone 5," he wrote.

How investors adjust to that reality of slower growth is hard to predict. Will it be interpreted as a sign of weakness? Or just the reality that as a company gets bigger its pace of growth will inevitably slow?

First, the numbers. In October, Apple told Wall Street analysts that for its first quarter, which ended in December, investors should expect the company to report $52 billion in revenue and earnings of $11.75 a share.

But Apple tends to be notoriously conservative in its own guidance. For the same quarter a year earlier, Apple beat revenue estimates by more than 25% and earnings forecasts by nearly 50%. The surprising quarterly performance sent its stock into the stratosphere over the next nine months, eventually hitting an all-time high of $702.10 in September.

Such a huge surprise seems unlikely this time around. The consensus among Wall Street analysts is that Apple will report $54.7 billion in revenue and $13.41 a share in earnings. If the latter figure proves correct, that would represent a decline from the $13.87 a share in earnings that Apple reported for the same quarter last year. Not only would it be the first drop in a decade, but it also could confirm fears that Apple's new mix of products, including the iPad Mini, are hurting the company's historically high profit margins.

Making this all the more complicated is a quirk in the calendar. Last year, the same quarter had 14 weeks. This year, it has only 13 weeks. That means once the numbers are released, analysts and investors will have to do some fast calculations to make comparisons that are truly apples to apples.

In addition to worries about profit margins, investors have been fretting over rumors that the iPhone 5 has not been selling as well as expected, that rival Samsung Electronics Co. is widening its lead in smartphone sales, and that Apple's product upgrades don't dazzle like they once did. Of course, much of this is conjecture. But it has muddled projections, with analysts predicting that Apple could report earnings from as low as $11.53 a share to as much as $15.50 a share.

That kind of uncertainty has made investors even more eager than usual to hear any news about Apple's performance. Even more important than the numbers, however, is what Apple executives say about the future.

Since last summer, analysts have been growing more pessimistic about the current fiscal year, which ends in September, lowering their earnings projections to $48.86 a share from $54.87 a share in July. Should Apple lower that outlook further in the conference call Wednesday, it could trigger panic among Apple's investors.

"I think the concerns being reflected in the stock today have more to do with the next quarter than this one," said Walter Piecyk, a research analyst at BTIG.

To some analysts, the gloom over Apple's prospect is simply absurd. The value of the stock, trading at about 11 times earnings, is low by historical standards. Its price-to-earnings ratio hasn't been this low in more than five years, a period in which it has hovered between 15 and 20 times earnings.

And according to research firm Bespoke Investment Group, Apple is currently trading further below the consensus target ($728.36) than any of the other 100 largest stocks in the S&P 500. Apple on Tuesday closed up $4.77, or 1%, to $504.77‎.

In this view, the world's most valuable company is trading at bargain basement prices.

"There's nothing wrong with their business," said Colin Gillis, director of research at BGC Financial. "It's just a question of whether growth is going to slow. That had to happen eventually."

chris.obrien@latimes.com

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Algeria hostage death toll rises to 37

CAIRO — Islamic militants who seized hundreds of hostages were "wild with their demands," forcing the Algerian military to act quickly in a standoff at a natural gas refinery that led to the deaths of 37 foreign captives and 29 extremists, the Algerian prime minister said Monday.

In a televised news conference from the capital, Algiers, that offered the country's official explanation for what happened at the remote compound in the Sahara desert, Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal said the attackers were rigging explosives throughout the complex and needed to be stopped before they blew it up.

The ordeal drew world attention to Algeria for five days, beginning with a predawn assault by militants Wednesday and ending Sunday when special forces captured five extremists amid booby traps and a landscape of charred vehicles and scattered, disfigured bodies.

The Algerian government moved to assure foreign energy companies, such as BP, which co-runs the refinery at In Amenas, that it would deal aggressively with terrorism. About 60% of the nation's revenue comes from oil and gas reserves, and it was reportedly the first time militants had targeted such a facility.

But the country's security and intelligence forces, among the harshest in the Arab world, appear to have been caught off guard. The prime minister said militants, including bomb makers, knew the layout of the plant and may have been assisted by a former refinery driver.

The death toll of 37 foreigners was up from an earlier estimate of 23. Seven of the dead have not been identified. Among the captives confirmed dead or missing are three Americans, seven Japanese, six Britons, six Filipinos, five Norwegians, one Colombian and nationals from other countries.

Some of them died when militants shot them in the head, Sellal said.

Three militants were captured in addition to the 29 killed. Earlier reports had put the number of captured militants at five. Some had been wearing Algerian military uniforms. Their nationalities, including Egyptian, Libyan, Tunisian and Mauritanian, indicated the spread of Islamic extremism across North Africa since the political upheaval of the "Arab Spring" began in late 2010.

Sellal said two Canadians were also involved in the attack. One of them — who spoke English and was identified only as Chedad — commanded the rounding up of foreign hostages.

The prime minister offered condolences to the families of victims, saying, "This is a terrorist act rejected by Algerians." He added that the militants, connected to a group that fought against the government in the 1990s civil war, "want to plunge Algeria back into terrorism."

The assault on the refinery was carried out by extremists who traveled from neighboring Mali, officials said. The mastermind of the plot was Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a longtime Islamic militant linked to the group Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. Sellal said the Islamists headed east, crossing into Niger, Libya and finally into Algeria's desert. Their intent was to seize foreigners and hold them in Mali for ransom.

"But their original goal did not succeed," Sellal said.

Militants in pickup trucks ambushed a bus carrying foreign workers to a nearby airport. They encountered gunfire from security guards and drove the hostages to the refinery. There, they battled guards, including one who set off an alarm, alerting technical workers to stop the flow of gas through the refinery's labyrinth of pipes.

It was not clear, though, why the militants stormed the gas complex if their goal was only to kidnap foreigners. Such inconsistencies have frustrated foreign officials. Even after Sellal's comments, much of what unfolded remained opaque.

Western officials, however, have publicly supported Algeria's actions despite earlier suggestions that the military may have acted too quickly.

Once inside the compound, the militants split into two groups: One group secured the plant; the other rounded up hostages in the housing area. There were 790 workers on the site, including 134 foreigners, most of whom were separated from the Algerian workers.

"The militants knew very well the [gas complex] area and their primary goal was to take over and control the foreigners in the compound," Sellal said. "They had heavy arsenals."

Earlier accounts by freed hostages said captives were forced to wear explosives belts. Sellal said the militants set booby traps and "planted explosives everywhere." Negotiations proved fruitless when militants demanded that Islamic radicals held in Algerian prisons be released. They also said they would use hostages as shields to escape to Mali, where they would seek financial payments from the energy companies for their release.

The demands were "impossible to meet," Sellal said, "and it caused the military to intervene."

In a video statement Sunday, Belmokhtar, who is known for kidnapping for ransom to fuel militant plots, said the refinery attack was retribution for French airstrikes this month against Islamist rebels in Mali. Belmokhtar's whereabouts were unknown.

International officials said the attack appeared to have been planned before the French actions. The prime minister indicated that arrested militants said the operation took months to plan.

The prime minister said that by early Thursday the militants had threatened to kill their captives. They began putting workers inside bomb-laden vehicles and attempted to drive through the compound and flee toward Mali. Sellal said that after a "fierce response from the armed forces," two of the vehicles exploded and flipped over.

Accounts by hostages and claims by militants to a Mauritanian news organization indicate that a number of hostages died when military helicopters opened fire on the fleeing vehicles. Sellal described the army response as "very smart," saying soldiers and snipers had to act swiftly after the extremists threatened to execute captives and blow up the refinery, which could have killed people miles away.

A bomb detonated in one pipe but the explosion was limited. Hostages, mainly Algerians, including some who helped Westerners escape, cut holes through fences and slipped through gates during days of confusion and turmoil.

The U.S. State Department identified the Americans confirmed killed as Victor Lynn Lovelady, Gordon Lee Rowan — no hometown given for either — and Frederick Buttaccio, a Texas resident who was confirmed dead last week. A department spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland, said that seven U.S. citizens "survived the attack.... We have no further information to provide."

She added, "We will continue to work closely with the government of Algeria to gain a fuller understanding of the terrorist attack of last week and how we can work together moving forward to combat such threats in the future."

jeffrey.fleishman@latimes.com

Special correspondent Reem Abdellatif contributed to this report.

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Samsung decides to kick RIM when it’s down by bashing BlackBerry in new ad [video]

Samsung (005930) is well known for its clever ads mocking Apple (AAPL) and its fans, but the company has decided to pick on a less powerful target in its newest ad that takes swipes RIM (RIMM) and its BlackBerry smartphones. The ad revolves around an office that is implementing its own bring-your-own-device policy and is meant to show that both the Galaxy S III and the Galaxy Note II are ideal business phones that can enable greater creativity. While most workers in the ad happily switch to Samsung smartphones after the BYOD policy is put in place, one of them insists on clinging to his BlackBerry, which prompts one of his coworkers to ask, “Are you finally going to retire that thing?” The full video is posted below.

[More from BGR: BlackBerry 10 OS walkthrough, BlackBerry Z10 pricing]

This article was originally published on BGR.com

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'Restrepo' director has sorrowful Sundance return

PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — Sebastian Junger wishes his latest Sundance Film Festival documentary never had to be made.

It's been a bittersweet return for Junger at Sundance, where his war chronicle "Restrepo" won the top documentary prize three years ago.

Junger's back with "Which Way Is the Front Line from Here? The Life and Time of Tim Hetherington," a portrait of his "Restrepo" co-director, who was killed covering fighting in Libya in April 2011. The film debuts April 18 on HBO.

Junger and producer James Brabazon, a long-time colleague with whom Hetherington covered combat in Liberia, were glad to share the film with Sundance audiences but uneasy coming to a festival that's billed as a celebration of film.

"It's an odd feeling. James and I are maybe the only filmmakers in the town who are in some ways quite sad our film exists," Junger said in an interview alongside Brabazon. "But it's also our opportunity to sort of communicate how extraordinary our good friend Tim Hetherington was.

"So I'm walking around, I'm seeing restaurants and street corners where Tim and I had conversations. I'm sort of flashing back. Yeah, it's a very kind of poignant experience."

A portrait of a U.S. platoon in Afghanistan, "Restrepo" earned an Academy Award nomination for best documentary. Six weeks after attending the Oscars, Hetherington was killed by shrapnel from a mortar round.

"Which Way Is the Front Line" chronicles Hetherington's early life in Great Britain, where he studied photography and first went overseas in 1999 to cover young soccer players in Liberia. In 2003, he returned there with veteran war photojournalist Brabazon to cover rebels trying to overthrow President Charles Taylor.

In 2007, Junger, author of the best-seller "The Perfect Storm," enlisted Hetherington to shoot photos and video for "Restrepo." The two spent a year filming a platoon in one of Afghanistan's most dangerous war zones, capturing both the boredom of waiting around for the fighting and tragedy as U.S. soldiers lost close friends in combat.

Hetherington was not the usual objective, fly-on-the-wall photojournalist. The new film reveals him as a chronicler of combat but also a humanitarian who engaged with his subjects and put his own life at risk to help them.

Brabazon recounts a day in Liberia when a doctor treating rebels was accused of being a government spy. A rebel leader dragged the man away at gunpoint, and Brabazon, who already had witnessed executions in Liberia, was convinced he was about to shoot video of another.

Hetherington was shooting video right next to him and stepped in to grab the gun hand of the rebel leader. He talked the man down, telling him not to shoot the doctor because he was the only medic the rebels had to tend their wounded.

"That for me more than anything demonstrated Tim's courage, bravery and central humanity," Brabazon said. "That wasn't another picture or part of the story for him. That was something that he needed to involve himself in as a human being with a very specific and concrete outcome. That person survived and was able to continue treating the wounded. That's how Tim saw war."

Hetherington had talked about leaving combat coverage behind, starting a family and settling down in a less-dangerous lifestyle. Though Hetherington had called Libya his last trip to a war zone, Junger and Brabazon said they're not sure he would have followed through and given up the front lines despite new opportunities that "Restrepo" had opened for him.

Junger and Hetherington had enjoyed the glitz of the Oscars, but they definitely felt out of place.

"If you're in the Hollywood world, the red carpet is in some ways, it's a savage sort of competition for attention," Junger said. "It's their combat zone, and we were just visiting it. ... We're kind of going to the zoo and seeing the pretty animals in some sense."

Hetherington enjoyed it and was bemused by all the attention, Junger said. Yet throughout Oscar season, the Arab Spring revolts were erupting in Egypt, Libya and elsewhere in Middle East. Hetherington and Junger kept telling each other they should be there rather than parading around Hollywood in tuxedos.

Soon after, Hetherington was there, back on the front lines.

"He is probably the only person who's managed to do this. He went from the red carpet at the Oscars to dead in a war zone in six weeks," Junger said. "People who make films that go to the Oscars usually don't get killed in war zones, and people who go to war zones aren't often on the red carpet. And he managed to do both."

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Well: An Unexpected Road Hazard: Obesity

Obesity carries yet another surprising risk, according to a new study: obese drivers are more likely than normal weight drivers to die in a car crash.

Researchers reviewed data on accidents recorded in the Fatality Analysis Reporting System, managed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Beginning with 41,283 collisions, the scientists selected accidents in which the cars, trucks or minivans were the same size.

Then the investigators gathered statistics on height and weight from driver’s licenses and categorized the drivers of wrecked cars into four groups based on body mass index. The study, published online Monday in the Emergency Medicine Journal, also recorded information on seat-belt use, time of day of the accident, driver sex, driver alcohol use, air bag deployment and collision type.

In the analysis, there were 6,806 drivers involved in 3,403 accidents, all of which involved at least one fatality. Among the 5,225 drivers for whom the researchers had complete information, 3 percent were underweight (a B.M.I of less than 18.5), 46 percent were of normal weight (18.5 to 24.9), 33 percent were overweight (25 to 29.9) and 18 percent were obese (a B.M.I. above 30).

Drivers with a B.M.I. under 18 and those between 25 and 29.9 had death rates about the same as people of normal weight, the researchers found. But among the obese, the higher the B.M.I., the more likely a driver was to die in an accident.

A B.M.I. of 30 to 34.9 was linked to a 21 percent increase in risk of death, and a number between 35 and 39.9 to a 51 percent increase. Drivers with a B.M.I. above 40 were 81 percent more likely to die than those of normal weight in similar accidents.

The reasons for the association are unclear, but they probably involve both vehicle design and the poorer health of obese people. The authors cite one study using obese and normal cadavers, in which obese people had significantly more forward movement away from the vehicle seat before the seat belt engaged because the additional soft tissue prevented the belt from fitting tightly.

“This adds one more item to the long list of negative consequences of obesity,” said the lead author, Thomas M. Rice, an epidemiologist with the Transportation Research and Education Center of the University of California, Berkeley. “It’s one more reason to lose weight.”

Other factors that might have affected fatality rates — the age and sex of the driver, the vehicle type, seat-belt use, alcohol use, air bag deployment and whether the collision was head-on or not — did not explain the differences between obese and normal weight drivers.

“Vehicle designers are teaching to the test — designing so that crash-test dummies do well,” Dr. Rice said. “But crash-test dummies are typically normal size adults and children. They’re not designed to account for our nation’s changing body types.”

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Kraft Foods sells suburban Chicago headquarters, leases it back

Kraft Foods Group Inc. has sold its suburban Chicago headquarters as part of a broad-based effort to return cash to shareholders.

The company, which plans to lease back the building for at least 10 years, declined to say how much the buyer — real estate investment trust W.P. Carey Inc. — paid for the 679,000-square-foot property, situated on a 70-acre campus.

Kraft Foods was spun off from Mondelez International in October and is now a $19-billion North American grocery business. Chief Executive Tony Vernon said the company will shift its focus from revenue growth and profit margins to generating cash.

Although sale-leasebacks are a multibillion-dollar industry, Garry Cohen, senior managing director of leaseback capital at Mesirow Financial in Chicago, characterized them an "underutilized tool."

Companies employ sale-leasebacks as a way to "unlock capital they had previously tied up in real estate," he said.

A Kraft Foods spokesman said the move allows the company to reinvest capital from the property without moving from the campus in Northfield, Ill.

In a memo to employees, Vernon said the sale reflects a desire to generate cash — not an interest in leaving the area.

"We're looking at numerous opportunities across our entire organization — from corporate to the functions to the business units — to improve our cash flow," Vernon said.

He added that nothing will change for employees as a result of the sale except the name on the deed. "In other words, it's business as usual," Vernon said.

eyork@tribune.com

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Prosecutors going easier on assisted suicide among elderly

SAN LUIS OBISPO — A park ranger flagged down the elderly driver as he left a lonely beach parking lot 45 minutes past closing time.

George Taylor, 86, had cuts around his neck and on his wrists. He was disoriented, and there was a body in the back seat with a plastic trash bag cinched around its neck.

"Is that a mannequin?" the ranger asked, scanning the car with his flashlight.

Taylor said that it was his wife, 81-year-old Gewynn Taylor, and that she had been dead since the sun went down that December day. He and Gewynn, his wife of 65 years, had a suicide pact, he said, and he had failed.

The incident shocked a legion of friends who knew the couple from their frequent appearances before the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors, where for years they had protested a massive sewer project in their tiny town of Los Osos.

It also presented local authorities with a problem that has vexed prosecutors and profoundly troubled families across the United States: Where does justice lie for those who, with no apparent motives other than love, help family members fulfill their last wishes and end their lives?

At least twice in the last year, prosecutors in California decided not to bring charges in similar cases. In other instances, assisted suicide convictions can result in light sentences; on Friday, an Orange County social worker received three years' probation for providing an 86-year-old veteran who wanted to end his life with his final meal: Oxycontin crushed into yogurt.

Both George and Gewynn Taylor were active in community causes. By all accounts, they were constant companions. Until recently, they enjoyed doing chores around a small ranch they owned and visited from time to time. Both also were "shepherds" of the late Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the controversial doctor who practiced and preached euthanasia, according to a court document.

George Taylor, charged with the felony of assisting suicide, pleaded guilty last month.

On Wednesday, San Luis Obispo County Superior Court Judge Ginger E. Garrett sentenced him to three years' probation and two days in jail — time already served after his arrest Dec. 10, 2012, at Montana de Oro State Park. His attorney, Ilan Funke-Bilu, said his client would continue to receive mental health counseling and has "bonded" with his therapist.

At his brief hearing, the soft-spoken, slender Taylor, a retired Los Angeles firefighter, expressed gratitude but had no further comment.

In an interview, his attorney called the outcome of the case "a perfect storm of wisdom" — prosecutors brought lesser charges, and the judge was lenient.

The couple had disclosed their pact to their daughter and a few others close to them but did not reveal details, Funke-Bilu said.

"They were sharp, bright and warm," he said. "There was nothing wrong with their thinking. They were active people who always promised one another that if they couldn't lead their lives the way they felt they should, then that would be the end of it."

The attorney said medical problems were taking a toll on the couple but declined to elaborate. Neither had a terminal illness, he said, "but terminal diseases weren't the test for them."

It also wasn't the top consideration for Jack Koency, of Laguna Niguel. At 86, Koency was still mobile but had an acquaintance, Elizabeth Barrett, 66, help him end his life. Barrett bought him yogurt, a bottle of brandy and heartburn medication to help him keep the Oxycontin-and-yogurt mixture down.

Prosecutors in the 2011 case said they weighed several factors in recommending probation, including the wishes of Koency's family and "the nature of the crime."

In San Luis Obispo, Jerret Gran, a deputy district attorney, said investigators found no malice in George Taylor's action.

"It wasn't murder," Gran said. "There was an intent to help her kill herself, not an intent to kill her."

Cases filed under California's assisted suicide law rarely go to trial. Legal experts note that jurors might be torn about convicting elderly defendants they see as legitimately bereaved if not entirely blameless.

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BlackBerry 10 camera software revealed, including built-in Instagram-like photo filters [video]

Just when we start to think we know everything there is to know about BlackBerry 10, new details leak. Mobile blog The Gadget Masters on Friday published a video revealing the new BlackBerry 10 camera software included on a pre-release version of the BlackBerry Z10 smartphone. While the software on this prototype phone likely isn’t final, several new features that will be included in RIM’s (RIMM) new BlackBerry 10 camera software are displayed in the video. Among the highlights is a built-in photo editor that includes cropping, rotation and Instagram-like photo filters. The full video follows below.

[More from BGR: RIM heats up as BlackBerry 10 launch nears]

This article was originally published on BGR.com

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ABC News' Barbara Walters hospitalized after fall

NEW YORK (AP) — Veteran ABC newswoman Barbara Walters has fallen at an inauguration party at an ambassador's home in Washington and has been hospitalized.

Walters, 83, fell Saturday night on a step at the residence of Britain's ambassador to the United States, Peter Westmacott, ABC News spokesman Jeffrey Schneider said. The fall left Walters with a cut on her forehead, he said.

Walters, out of an abundance of caution, went to a hospital for treatment of the cut and for a full examination, Schneider said on Sunday. She was alert and was "telling everyone what to do, which we all take as a very positive sign," he said.

It was unclear when Walters might be released from the hospital, which ABC didn't identify.

Walters was TV news' first female superstar, making headlines in 1976 as a network anchor with an unprecedented $1 million annual salary. During more than three decades at ABC, and before that at NBC, her exclusive interviews with rulers, royalty and entertainers have brought her celebrity status. In 1997, she created "The View," a live weekday talk show that became an unexpected hit.

Walters had heart surgery in May 2010 but returned to active duty on "The View" that September, declaring, "I'm fine!"

Even in her ninth decade, Walters continues to keep a busy schedule, including appearances on "The View," prime-time interviews and her annual special, "10 Most Fascinating People," on which, in December, she asked New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie if he considered himself fit enough to be president someday. (Christie, although acknowledging he is "more than a little" overweight, replied he would be up to the job.)

Last June, Walters apologized for trying to help a former aide to Syrian President Bashar Assad land a job or get into college in the United States. She acknowledged the conflict in trying to help Sheherazad Jaafari, daughter of the Syrian ambassador to the United States and a one-time press aide to Assad. Jaafari helped Walters land an interview with the Syrian president that aired in December 2011.

Walters said she realized the help she offered Jaafari was a conflict and said, "I regret that."

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Well: Holly the Cat's Incredible Journey

Nobody knows how it happened: an indoor housecat who got lost on a family excursion managing, after two months and about 200 miles, to return to her hometown.

Even scientists are baffled by how Holly, a 4-year-old tortoiseshell who in early November became separated from Jacob and Bonnie Richter at an R.V. rally in Daytona Beach, Fla., appeared on New Year’s Eve — staggering, weak and emaciated — in a backyard about a mile from the Richters’ house in West Palm Beach.

“Are you sure it’s the same cat?” wondered John Bradshaw, director of the University of Bristol’s Anthrozoology Institute. In other cases, he has suspected, “the cats are just strays, and the people have got kind of a mental justification for expecting it to be the same cat.”

But Holly not only had distinctive black-and-brown harlequin patterns on her fur, but also an implanted microchip to identify her.

“I really believe these stories, but they’re just hard to explain,” said Marc Bekoff, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Colorado. “Maybe being street-smart, maybe reading animal cues, maybe being able to read cars, maybe being a good hunter. I have no data for this.”

There is, in fact, little scientific dogma on cat navigation. Migratory animals like birds, turtles and insects have been studied more closely, and use magnetic fields, olfactory cues, or orientation by the sun.

Scientists say it is more common, although still rare, to hear of dogs returning home, perhaps suggesting, Dr. Bradshaw said, that they have inherited wolves’ ability to navigate using magnetic clues. But it’s also possible that dogs get taken on more family trips, and that lost dogs are more easily noticed or helped by people along the way.

Cats navigate well around familiar landscapes, memorizing locations by sight and smell, and easily figuring out shortcuts, Dr. Bradshaw said.

Strange, faraway locations would seem problematic, although he and Patrick Bateson, a behavioral biologist at Cambridge University, say that cats can sense smells across long distances. “Let’s say they associate the smell of pine with wind coming from the north, so they move in a southerly direction,” Dr. Bateson said.

Peter Borchelt, a New York animal behaviorist, wondered if Holly followed the Florida coast by sight or sound, tracking Interstate 95 and deciding to “keep that to the right and keep the ocean to the left.”

But, he said, “nobody’s going to do an experiment and take a bunch of cats in different directions and see which ones get home.”

The closest, said Roger Tabor, a British cat biologist, may have been a 1954 study in Germany which cats placed in a covered circular maze with exits every 15 degrees most often exited in the direction of their homes, but more reliably if their homes were less than five kilometers away.

New research by the National Geographic and University of Georgia’s Kitty Cams Project, using video footage from 55 pet cats wearing video cameras on their collars, suggests cat behavior is exceedingly complex.

For example, the Kitty Cams study found that four of the cats were two-timing their owners, visiting other homes for food and affection. Not every cat, it seems, shares Holly’s loyalty.

KittyCams also showed most of the cats engaging in risky behavior, including crossing roads and “eating and drinking substances away from home,” risks Holly undoubtedly experienced and seems lucky to have survived.

But there have been other cats who made unexpected comebacks.

“It’s actually happened to me,” said Jackson Galaxy, a cat behaviorist who hosts “My Cat From Hell” on Animal Planet. While living in Boulder, Colo., he moved across town, whereupon his indoor cat, Rabbi, fled and appeared 10 days later at the previous house, “walking five miles through an area he had never been before,” Mr. Galaxy said.

Professor Tabor cited longer-distance reports he considered credible: Murka, a tortoiseshell in Russia, traveling about 325 miles home to Moscow from her owner’s mother’s house in Voronezh in 1989; Ninja, who returned to Farmington, Utah, in 1997, a year after her family moved from there to Mill Creek, Wash.; and Howie, an indoor Persian cat in Australia who in 1978 ran away from relatives his vacationing family left him with and eventually traveled 1,000 miles to his family’s home.

Professor Tabor also said a Siamese in the English village of Black Notley repeatedly hopped a train, disembarked at White Notley, and walked several miles back to Black Notley.

Still, explaining such journeys is not black and white.

In the Florida case, one glimpse through the factual fog comes on the little cat’s feet. While Dr. Bradshaw speculated Holly might have gotten a lift, perhaps sneaking under the hood of a truck heading down I-95, her paws suggest she was not driven all the way, nor did Holly go lightly.

“Her pads on her feet were bleeding,” Ms. Richter said. “Her claws are worn weird. The front ones are really sharp, the back ones worn down to nothing.”

Scientists say that is consistent with a long walk, since back feet provide propulsion, while front claws engage in activities like tearing. The Richters also said Holly had gone from 13.5 to 7 pounds.

Holly hardly seemed an adventurous wanderer, though her background might have given her a genetic advantage. Her mother was a feral cat roaming the Richters’ mobile home park, and Holly was born inside somebody’s air-conditioner, Ms. Richter said. When, at about six weeks old, Holly padded into their carport and jumped into the lap of Mr. Richter’s mother, there were “scars on her belly from when the air conditioner was turned on,” Ms. Richter said.

Scientists say that such early experience was too brief to explain how Holly might have been comfortable in the wild — after all, she spent most of her life as an indoor cat, except for occasionally running outside to chase lizards. But it might imply innate personality traits like nimbleness or toughness.

“You’ve got these real variations in temperament,” Dr. Bekoff said. “Fish can by shy or bold; there seem to be shy and bold spiders. This cat, it could be she has the personality of a survivor.”

He said being an indoor cat would not extinguish survivalist behaviors, like hunting mice or being aware of the sun’s orientation.

The Richters — Bonnie, 63, a retired nurse, and Jacob, 70, a retired airline mechanics’ supervisor and accomplished bowler — began traveling with Holly only last year, and she easily tolerated a hotel, a cabin or the R.V.

But during the Good Sam R.V. Rally in Daytona, when they were camping near the speedway with 3,000 other motor homes, Holly bolted when Ms. Richter’s mother opened the door one night. Fireworks the next day may have further spooked her, and, after searching for days, alerting animal agencies and posting fliers, the Richters returned home catless.

Two weeks later, an animal rescue worker called the Richters to say a cat resembling Holly had been spotted eating behind the Daytona franchise of Hooters, where employees put out food for feral cats.

Then, on New Year’s Eve, Barb Mazzola, a 52-year-old university executive assistant, noticed a cat “barely standing” in her backyard in West Palm Beach, struggling even to meow. Over six days, Ms. Mazzola and her children cared for the cat, putting out food, including special milk for cats, and eventually the cat came inside.

They named her Cosette after the orphan in Les Misérables, and took her to a veterinarian, Dr. Sara Beg at Paws2Help. Dr. Beg said the cat was underweight and dehydrated, had “back claws and nail beds worn down, probably from all that walking on pavement,” but was “bright and alert” and had no parasites, heartworm or viruses. “She was hesitant and scared around people she didn’t know, so I don’t think she went up to people and got a lift,” Dr. Beg said. “I think she made the journey on her own.”

At Paws2Help, Ms. Mazzola said, “I almost didn’t want to ask, because I wanted to keep her, but I said, ‘Just check and make sure she doesn’t have a microchip.’” When told the cat did, “I just cried.”

The Richters cried, too upon seeing Holly, who instantly relaxed when placed on Mr. Richter’s shoulder. Re-entry is proceeding well, but the mystery persists.

“We haven’t the slightest idea how they do this,” Mr. Galaxy said. “Anybody who says they do is lying, and, if you find it, please God, tell me what it is.”

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