Jim Cramer Put These 9 Stocks Under the Microscope

6. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 166

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is one of the stocks Jim Cramer put under the microscope. Cramer mentioned the stock during the episode and stated:

Finally, on Thursday night, Apple reports, and this stock has been on an eight-week losing streak, although it managed to post a nice 3% gain today. Much of that pullback relates to the rising cost of memory chips because those are key components for iPhones and Mac computers. Apple’s now forced to choose between sacrifices of margin or raising prices and possibly hurting demand. I want to see what kinds of gross margins Apple’s able to generate and hear from management how they think that it could change in the future. I’m not optimistic on the memory issue, but we did get some positive commentary from an analyst about how memory margin problem is manageable, and that could be why the stock was up $7.37. First good day in ages, by the way.

I also want to hear about the durability of iPhone sales. A strong launch for the iPhone 17 was one of the main positive catalysts in the fall, helping propel Apple to its early December all-time high. Some of those strong iPhone numbers should be in the quarter that Apple reports Thursday, so that could help. Finally, for Apple, I gotta have an update on the company’s AI strategy as the long-delayed Siri reboot should finally happen this spring. A couple of weeks ago, I broke the story that Apple’s working with Google’s Gemini technology to power its Apple Foundation models. But we didn’t get any indication that Google’s paying Apple for the privilege, like they pay to be the default search engine on the iPhone. In fact, it looks like Apple could be paying them a small amount. Still, it would be good to get more details on the Gemini partnership, which should still net Apple more than $20 billion this year…

Remember, the judge that was against this monopoly payment initially reversed that. The money could still be flowing to Apple big. Now, Apple really doesn’t get enough credit for sidestepping the massive spending commitments that its fellow mega cap tech companies keep making to stay competitive in AI. You know, you don’t hear them spending tens of billions of dollars in data centers, but maybe some huge CapEx numbers from Meta and Microsoft the night before will remind investors that Apple’s the one tech titan that’s not spending like a drunken sailor. Regardless, you know my view on this: own Apple, don’t trade it.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) manufactures and sells devices such as the iPhone, Mac, iPad, along with its line-up of wearables and accessories. The devices are supported by the company’s app ecosystem, AppleCare, and cloud tools.