5 Tech Stocks to Buy Now According to Barry Dargan’s Intermede Investment Partners

3. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)

Intermede Investment Partners’ Stake Value: $228,217,000
Intermede Investment Partners’ 13F Portfolio: 4.69%
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 134

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) develops, manufactures, and sells smartphones, laptops, tablets, wearables, and accessories. Insider Monkey’s database showed that 134 hedge funds had stakes in Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) at the end of the fourth quarter of 2021, up from 120 funds the previous quarter.

Rosenblatt analyst Barton Crockett decreased his price target on Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) to $168 from $184 on May 2 and maintained a Neutral rating on the stock. Crockett, who was unsure when China would no longer be a Covid risk for Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), said its March quarter report was encouraging, but it was plagued by fears of more supply disruptions in the June quarter.

In the fourth quarter of 2021, Barry Dargan’s Intermede Investment Partners owned 1.29 million Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) shares, worth over $228.22 million, representing 4.69% of the total 13F securities. Fisher Asset Management is Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s largest shareholder, with shares worth $11.17 billion as of Q1 2022.

Here is what Berkshire Hathaway has to say about Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) in its Q4 2021 investor letter:

“Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) – our runner-up Giant as measured by its year end 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 shares, an act we applaud. Tim Cook, Apple’s brilliant CEO, quite properly regards users of Apple products as his first love, but all of his other constituencies benefit from Tim’s managerial touch as well.”