13 Best NASDAQ Stocks to Buy So Far in 2025

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6. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 166

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) designs and manufactures smart devices. It offers smartphones under the iPhone line, personal computers under the Mac line, and multi-purpose tablets, under the iPad line. It also offers other accessories and wearables, like the AirPods, Apple TV, Apple Watch, Beats products, and HomePod. It also offers AppleCare support and cloud services.

Erik Woodring from Morgan Stanley lowered his iPhone shipment estimates for 2025-2026 by 1% to 5% because of delayed releases at the company. This is because of quality issues and malfunction rates that exceed 80%. Since June 2024, many features planned for release in April with iOS 18.4 2025 have been postponed. The company now aims to fix these issues by 2026, but the investors are already concerned about the competitiveness of its AI development.

Woodring has also reduced his price target on Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) from $275 to $252 due to the lack of an AI-driven iPhone upgrade cycle. The company is generally best known for its iPhone product cycle, with 52% of its revenue coming from this product line. The company has over 2.2 billion devices on sale and the next target is now to integrate AI for strengthening these service offerings.

Columbia Seligman Global Technology Fund is optimistic about the company due to iPhone 17’s AI potential. It stated the following regarding Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:

“The fund maintained a position in Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) throughout the quarter through the release of the company’s new iPhone 16 in September. Company leaders were excited about the release of the new model, as this is the first model that will feature enhanced AI capabilities through the Apple Intelligence features. Sales for the first few weeks in October and November trailed behind year over year sales from the iPhone 15, as availability of Apple Intelligence was not compatible with all iPhone models. Apple announced a partnership with OpenAI that has allowed the integration of ChatGPT into the Apple ecosystem, separate from the core Apple Intelligence features. This partnership highlights continued progress from Apple to introduce AI capabilities into its products and we expect the iPhone 17 to have even more expansive AI capabilities, increasing potential demand for the new model that is on track to be released in 2025.”

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