We recently published a list of Jim Cramer’s Latest Portfolio: Top 10 Stocks in July. Since Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) ranks 2nd on the list, it deserves a deeper look.
Jim Cramer in a fresh episode of “Mad Money” on CNBC said that while investing isn’t easy, it’s made even more difficult by “authentic Wall Street gibberish” and “arcane technology.” Cramer said that there’s an “entire industry” in Wall Street wanting people to think that investing is hard and “ordinary people” cannot do it on their own. Cramer said that many people in the financial industry are just “after your fees” and they aren’t interested in making money from original investing. Cramer said that hedge fund managers and mutual funds make investing look inaccessible and impenetrable.
Cramer said that he’s “pulling back the curtain” and emphasized that investing isn’t “rocket science” or “brain surgery” and you don’t need to go to a business school to understand it. Cramer pitched himself as a “coach” or a “translator” who can explain the meaning of complex financial terms to ordinary people.
“You can comprehend all the mystical-sounding vocabulary we throw around here as long as you have a translator, a coach like me, who can explain what the darn words mean.”
For this article we watched several latest programs of Jim Cramer aired on CNBC and picked 10 stocks he’s talking about. With each company we have mentioned the number of hedge fund investors. Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points (see more details here).
Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 150
Talking about the top performers of the second quarter, Jim Cramer reiterated his age-old mantra of “own it don’t trade it” for Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL), saying he has remained “steadfast” on his Apple thesis.
“We held it through this period for the trust, because we are still believers.”
Cramer said Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) showed at its WWDC event that it can offer the “best” of AI because “everybody in the industry wants access to Apple’s massive user base.”
“The stock soared when it dawned on the doubters that they can have its cake (access to the best of AI) and eat it too because they don’t have to spend tens of billions of dollars to build out their own collection of data centers.”
Apple is among the top picks of Wedbush’s Dan Ives for the second half of 2024.
TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo also said in a fresh note that Apple has a competitive edge over others with its on-device AI.
Notable Wall Street analyst and Deepwater Asset Management Managing Partner Gene Munster recently made waves when he said in a post on Twitter that Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) is a better investment than Nvidia for the long term. Munster believes owning Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) over the next year will have a higher return because the market is in “denial” about Apple’s AI potential.
Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) is trading at 26X its 2025 EPS estimate ($7.22). This multiple, though higher than the industry average of 30, does not show the stock’s overvalued, given Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) sales growth of 6.40% for fiscal 2025 and 10.50% growth for the next five years on a per-annum basis.
Mar Vista Focus strategy stated the following regarding Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) in its first quarter 2024 investor letter:
“Apple Inc.’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) stock was pressured in the quarter as investors fretted over softening demand for smartphones, regulatory action from the US Department of Justice, and the Chinese government mandates restricting iPhone use by government officials. Despite these near-term headwinds, we continue to believe the company remains competitively advantaged and benefits from the Apple ecosystem, which has an installed base of over 2 billion devices and over 1 billion paying subscribers. We believe the Apple ecosystem will support a more predictable cash flow stream, which should grow intrinsic value high-single-digits over our investment horizon.”
Overall, Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) ranks 2nd on Insider Monkey’s list titled Jim Cramer’s Latest Portfolio: Top 10 Stocks in July. While we acknowledge the potential of Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL), our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.