We recently published a list of Top 10 Latest AI News, Earnings and Analyst Ratings You Should Not Miss. Since Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) ranks 6th on the list, it deserves a deeper look.
Tech stocks are continuing to decline amid fears the Fed is taking too long to begin interest rate cuts, stoked by the latest jobs data that showed unemployment is rising. However, some analysts believe the latest decline in AI stocks is part of a normal market rotation and gives investors an opportunity to buy. While talking to CNBC in a latest program, Michael Landsberg of Landsberg Bennett Private Wealth said that the latest decline is a “little bit of a reset, obviously.” The analyst said that AI stocks had a “great run” and the latest pullback is a “typical process” of market rotation.
“It doesn’t mean we are not positive longer term on AI but when you have big runs like that that’s why you rebalance portfolios to keep the risk in check,” Landsberg said.
Asked if the AI bubble has popped and this is the end of the AI hype, the analyst said “absolutely not” and called the recent pullback “deceleration” from growth and “normalization.”
Landsberg said that the earnings season will “separate the wheat from the chaff” and believes major tech companies will still drive earnings in the future.
For this article, we scanned the latest AI news, earnings, and analyst ratings and picked the 10 biggest stocks moving on these developments. 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
Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) is in the limelight after the company posted decent quarterly results, where declines in iPhone sales were more than offset by services revenue and Mac sales gains. Dan Ives of Wedbush reiterated an Outperform rating on the stock and increased his price target to $285 from $275.
“Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) Intelligence rollout has already begun with developers who will significantly enhance app capabilities as the company staggers the launch of its new AI feature along with its OpenAI partnership which Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) expects ChatGPT and all other features to be integrated into the iPhone and other devices by the end of the year. We believe AI technology being introduced into the Apple ecosystem will bring monetization opportunities on both the services as well as iPhone/hardware front and adds $30 to $40 per share.” Ives said.
Bank of America analyst Wamsi Mohan said he sees more upside for Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) in the December quarter and next year on the back of Apple Intelligence. The analyst reiterated a Buy rating and $256 price target on Apple.
He said Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) estimates could be revised higher due to “multi-year iPhone upgrade cycle, tailwinds to gross margins and strong cash flows.”
Morgan Stanley expects Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) to ship nearly 500 million iPhones in the next two years, marking a 6% increase from the FY21-FY22 cycle. Morgan Stanley said this growth can boost the annual iPhone average selling price (ASP) by 5%, leading to nearly $485 billion in revenue and $8.70 in earnings per share by FY26, exceeding consensus estimates by 7-9%.
Wall Street is expecting a new AI-powered refresh cycle for iPhones because it’s been years since millions of users upgraded their iPhones. Wedbush recently said 270 million, of 1.5 billion iPhones, have not upgraded in 4+ years
Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) is also training Siri based on its own language models. These smaller models run on devices, handling various daily tasks, with Apple revealing its on-device model has 3 billion parameters. For more complex tasks, a larger language model runs on Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) private servers, though its size is undisclosed and likely smaller than current large language models like OpenAI’s GPT-4, which has around 1.8 trillion parameters.
Polen Focus Growth Strategy stated the following regarding Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) in its Q2 2024 investor letter:
“The largest relative detractors in the quarter were NVIDIA, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), and Salesforce. In a reversal from some of the concerns driving the stock down in the first quarter, Apple re-emerged as a top performer in the second quarter. The company reported better-than-feared results in its iPhone segment that quelled concerns over weakness in China. Additionally, the company forecast a return to sales growth and announced a $110 billion stock buyback plan, the largest in U.S. history. Later in the period, at its Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple introduced long-awaited new AI features that spurred some optimism around an upgrade cycle for the iPhone and, more generally, the important role Apple may be able to play in the emerging AI landscape. We continue to study Apple closely, which we previously owned the company for many years during its growth phase, to determine if it is poised for another significant revenue and earnings growth period.”
Overall, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) ranks 6th on Insider Monkey’s list titled Top 10 Latest AI News, Earnings and Analyst Ratings You Should Not Miss. 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 AAPL but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
READ NEXT: Analyst Sees a New $25 Billion “Opportunity” for NVIDIA and Jim Cramer is Recommending These Stocks.
Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
