Top 10 Stocks to Watch as Investors Brace for Recession

3. Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL)

Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 158

Jim Cramer in a latest program on CNBC said that Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) has created “millions” of services jobs and invested heavily in the US. However, President Donald Trump’s tariffs are impacting the company and the government is not paying attention to the iPhone maker’s contributions:

“Apple’s done so much to create new jobs in this country, but there are not many manufacturing jobs, although they have partnered with other companies to do a lot of manufacturing here. Instead, Apple creates service jobs, especially in software — millions of them. That’s a pillar of our economy. But for whatever reason, nobody in Washington seems to care that much about protecting the all-important service sector. Bizarrely, with this administration, service jobs don’t seem to count. So when Trump comes back in and starts talking tariffs, Apple knows it’s a jam. They commit to doing more than $500 billion worth of investments in this country over the next four years. Could there be a quid pro quo? Does Apple get anything for that 500 billion? Yes. It gets a real expensive country to do business in, with not enough engineers to go around because our country doesn’t produce a lot of them.”

In February, Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) announced plans to spend and invest more than $500 billion in the US over the next four years.

Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) is desperately in need of new catalysts. The company’s revenue in China fell 8% in fiscal year 2024, following a 2% decline the previous year. The Chinese market accounts for about 15% of Apple’s total revenue, so this downtrend cannot be ignored.

Investors had hopes from the Wearables, Home, and Accessories segment, but so far, its performance has been weak. Vision Pro faces tough competition from Meta’s $500 Quest and the more affordable Quest 3S, making it hard to justify its $3,500 price tag. The failure of Apple’s HomePod, unable to compete with Amazon’s and Google’s lower-priced offerings, further highlights the challenges in this market.

Apple’s iPhone 16 has not shown promising growth prospects yet, and investors are still in a wait-and-see mode on the AI platform.