Want to Buy Apple (AAPL) Stock? Here’s What You Need to Know

RiverPark Advisors, LLC recently published its Q3 2020 RiverPark Large Growth Fund commentary – a copy of which can be downloaded here. During the third quarter of 2020, the RiverPark Large Growth Fund returned 10.84% (institutional shares), compared to the total return of 8.93% by the S&P 500 Index. You should check out RiverPark’s top 5 stock picks for investors to buy right now, which could be the biggest winners of 2021.

In the Q3 2020 Investor Letter, RiverPark highlighted a few stocks and Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is one of them. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is a technology company. Year-to-date, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) stock gained 69.4% and on December 8th it had a closing price of $124.38. Here is what RiverPark said:

“Apple: AAPL shares were a top contributor as the company reported record fiscal third quarter results, with revenue up 11% to $60 billion and EPS up 18% to $2.58 – both well ahead of expectations. Revenue was driven by double-digit growth in both Products (up 10%) and Services (up 15%), as well as growth in every geographic segment.

We believe that Apple remains one of the most innovative, best positioned and most profitable companies in what are still the early innings of the mobile technology revolution. Additionally, a fall 5G launch should benefit the company, COVID has highlighted the opportunity for the Apple Watch to be an essential health monitoring device, and the company has rapidly diversified into new high growth and high margin products. AirPods, which were launched only three years ago, are on track to generate $15-$20 billion in revenue this year, 5%-8% of total company revenue. iPhones continue to represent a progressively smaller portion of total revenue (44% of the company’s third quarter revenue, down from 48% a year ago), which should help to lessen the impact of year-to-year iPhone refresh cycles.

At the same time, Services provides robust growth for the company ($13 billion, up 15% yearover-year, and 22% of revenue in the June quarter, and more than $39 billion so far in Apple’s fiscal 2020, is accretive to the company’s margins (Services gross profit grew 20% for the quarter and accounts for 39% of total company gross profit) and adds a large, recurring revenue segment to the company’s business mix. The company maintains a fortress balance sheet with $193 billion of cash, $80 billion net of debt. We expect excess cash flow of more than $60 billion per year, which has been increasingly returned to shareholders through both a growing dividend and increased share repurchases. The company also recently completed a 4 for 1 stock split that was well received by investors.”

Apple Inc.

Pixabay/Public Domain

Last week, we published an article revealing that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) was one of the 15 best technology stocks to buy right now.

In Q3 2020, the number of bullish hedge fund positions on Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) stock increased by about 5% from the previous quarter (see the chart here), so a number of other hedge fund managers believe in Apple’s growth potential. Our calculations showed that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is ranked #9 among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.

The top 10 stocks among hedge funds returned 216% since the end of 2014 and outperformed the S&P 500 Index ETFs by more than 121 percentage points. We know it sounds unbelievable. You have been dismissing our articles about top hedge fund stocks mostly because you were fed biased information by other media outlets about hedge funds’ poor performance. You could have doubled the size of your nest egg by investing in the top hedge fund stocks instead of dumb S&P 500 ETFs. Below you can watch our video about the top 5 hedge fund stocks right now. All of these stocks had positive returns in 2020.

Video: Top 5 Stocks Among Hedge Funds

At Insider Monkey we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, Federal Reserve has been creating trillions of dollars electronically to keep the interest rates near zero. We believe this will lead to inflation and boost real estate prices. So, we recommended this real estate stock to our monthly premium newsletter subscribers. We go through lists like the 10 most profitable companies in the world to pick the best large-cap stocks to buy. Even though we recommend positions in only a tiny fraction of the companies we analyze, we check out as many stocks as we can. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. You can subscribe to our free daily newsletter on our website:

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.