5 Stocks to Buy When Everyone is Selling

3. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 134

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is a consumer electronics firm. Although the company has avoided the market meltdown of 2022, recent signs suggest that the overall volatility is beginning to catch up with the stock as well. The stock dropped by about 5% in mid-May after the firm said it expected an $8 billion hit from supply chain pressures in 2022. However, despite the forecast, the firm continues to deliver on the earnings front, managing positive growth in earnings per share and revenue in the first quarter. It also has strong pricing power due to the iPhone brand. 

On May 20, Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives maintained an Outperform rating on Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) stock with a price target of $200, highlighting that the firm was a “compelling name to own and ride out the market storm”. 

At the end of the fourth quarter of 2021, 134 hedge funds in the database of Insider Monkey held stakes worth $186 billion in Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), up from 120 in the previous quarter worth $146 billion.

In its Q4 2021 investor letter, Berkshire Hathaway highlighted a few stocks and Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) was one of them. Here is what the fund said:

“Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) – our runner-up Giant as measured by its yearend market value – is a different sort of holding. Here, our ownership is a mere 5.55%, up from 5.39% a year earlier. That increase sounds like small potatoes. But consider that each 0.1% of Apple’s 2021 earnings amounted to $100 million. We spent no Berkshire funds to gain our accretion. Apple’s repurchases did the job. It’s important to understand that only dividends from Apple are counted in the GAAP earnings Berkshire reports – and last year, Apple paid us $785 million of those. Yet our “share” of Apple’s earnings amounted to a staggering $5.6 billion. Much of what the company retained was used to repurchase Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) shares, an act we applaud. Tim Cook, Apple’s brilliant CEO, quite properly regards users of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) products as his first love, but all of his other constituencies benefit from Tim’s managerial touch as well.”