“The cheapest Apple Inc. shares in 12 years are encouraging some of the world’s biggest investors to bet that the stock will rebound after losing 33 percent of its value on concern about slowing profit growth,” Lu Wang and Leslie Picker report for Bloomberg News.

“The world’s largest company by market value is trading at a 29 percent discount to the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, near the widest gap since December 2000, data compiled by Bloomberg show,” Wang and Picker report. “While analysts have cut price targets by 21 percent since the stock peaked in September, the shares would rise 41 percent to $661 if investors valued the stock at the price-earnings ratio of the S&P 500, the data show.”

Wang and Picker report, “Apple has lost more than $200 billion in market value as increased competition and a lack of breakthrough products threaten to reduce profit margins. The pessimism is exaggerated because the company still dominates the smartphone and tablet markets and has enough cash to return to shareholders, according to Gamco Investors Inc., Thornburg Investment Management Inc. and Brown Advisory. Their funds bought Apple shares as they slumped from their record high in September.”

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