6. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)
Average Upside Potential: 19.54%
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 159
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is one of the 10 AI stocks that Jim Cramer and analysts are watching. On June 13, Morgan Stanley maintained an Overweight rating on AAPL shares and kept its $235 price target. The firm reported that “deep” 618 Festival channel promotions in China are driving higher-than-expected iPhone and iPad sell-through for the June quarter. The firm now anticipates approximately 3.0 million more iPhone units and 2.5 million more iPad units than previously forecast, which could translate to a $4 billion revenue increase, assuming no other changes. The analyst noted that September quarter builds are tracking in line or slightly better.
It is worth noting that on June 9, Mad Money’s host said:
“Hey, finally there’s a stock that people now love to downgrade… I’m talking about Apple. I expect to hear some downgrades tomorrow because of today’s supposedly ho-hum Worldwide Developers Conference… But what the critics seemed to be missing constantly is that the only question I heard was upgrade or not. Did you hear switch? I didn’t hear switch. As long as I didn’t hear switch, I’m going to hold the stock…
First, Apple’s in a dry spell. It doesn’t have anything new that the people want, but it has plenty of optionality… What it should do, it should just go acquire Perplexity. I know they don’t like acquisitions…. I wish they’d buy it… Perplexity is my favorite, and they definitely can afford it. Second, right now, Apple’s staring down two guns, one a ruling that declared Google a monopolist that may end its largesse toward Apple, like the $20 billion check it wrote to them in 2022 to be the default search engine. It’s also on the verge of losing a key case involving Epic, the gaming company, that would let them get around the 30% chunk that Apple takes from every transaction in the App Store. I think Apple could lose one. Probably won’t lose both…
Finally, let’s understand something. Apple is not a company that stands still… Can we stipulate that in the last year, it’s reasonable to believe that Tim Cook, the CEO, might have been a little distracted? Here’s a man… who’s been trying to do everything he’s supposed to do in order to meet the demands of the president of the United States. The president wanted investment in the U.S. What does he do? He announces that Apple’s going to spend $500 billion in the US over four years…
President then made it clear he didn’t want Apple to make as much product as it did in China. So unbelievably and in almost no time… Cook moved a huge amount of iPhone production to India. Then Trump says that India’s not the right place. The phones have to be made here. I mean, come on… But the bottom line: As long as nobody switches to Android, call me sanguine about Apple. Not more than that, not certainly less than that. Sanguine doesn’t mean buy, but it sure doesn’t mean sell…”
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) designs and sells consumer electronics that include smartphones, computers, tablets, wearables, and accessories. The company is engaged in providing subscription services such as Apple Music, Apple TV+, and Apple Arcade. It also operates platforms, including the App Store and Apple Pay.
