Jim Cramer rips Citi analysts over Apple

“I’d been wondering what to say about Citigroup’s coverage of Apple (AAPL), which took a sharp turn for the worse with the departure of its 16-year veteran analyst Richard Gardner last spring,” Philip Elmer-DeWitt reports for Fortune.

“The new team gave clients a 20-day one-two punch: Issuing a Buy at $571 just before the stock fell to $509.79, then downgrading Apple to Neutral just before shares bounced back to $533.90,” P.E.D. reports. “The king of hot-and-cold Apple TV commentators tore into Citi’s back-to-back reports Tuesday night.”

P.E.D. writes, “Despite a few slips of the tongue, Cramer did a good job. I have nothing to add, except that Citi may regret the day it let Richard Gardner go.”

Read more in the full article here.

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MacDailyNews Take: There are only a few Apple Inc. analysts/independents/firms worth listening to – and, without Gardner, Citi is no longer among that group.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]

Related articles:
Yeah, uh, about those so-called iPhone supply chain cuts: Never mind – December 18, 2012
Apple briefly dips below $500 for first time since February; shares quickly pop back up above $510 – December 17, 2012
Apple is so big, Citigroup is triple-teaming it while others question if Apple should be broken up – November 26, 2012

13 Comments

    1. Horace Dediu does excellent analysis via his asymco.com blog. Horace does not give you buying advice nor tell you the stock price, but he is the best to tell you about the fundamentals of the Apple and the competition. So I highly recommend everybody to read asymco.com.

  1. Good call by Cramer. There are analysts out there who try to make a name for themselves rather than analyze equities. Most value the company too high too often. They are just riding the wave until it peters out. Afraid to make objective points for fear of the wrath from fanboys and buy and hold investors. While others try to garner attention by valuing it too, too low suddenly. Most are like the rest of us, they simply try to do their job properly. It’s not easy covering a company that has gone up as high and fast as Apple. You can’t just be pie-in-the-sky forever. If you see something that warrants any negative comment you have to be bold enough to bring it up. Regardless of the criticism you will receive from the street. That’s why so many people lose money in the stock market. It’s too easy, as an analyst, to just go along with the crowd and not the objective. Then when a company falters to blame everyone else but the company. Nothing goes up forever. Nothing.

  2. Just a “gut” feeling about AAPL stock back to the normal 30-40% up this year compared to the past years, it is a good time to BUY now because 2013 will be another 40% appreciation from today’s $530 price!!!!
    So iSay AAPL = $750 in 2013

  3. Give PunditWatch (http://www.punditwatch.com) a look. It’s a new website with the goal of tracking the prognostications of the major financial, political and sports pundits. It will take a while for the site to collect and track the performance of the analysts and pundits it follows, to build a solid benchmark. But already, it is showing some self-important bloviators for what they are. Enjoy.

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