“Canaccord raised its price target for Apple to $112 from $102 Friday, maintaining a ‘buy’ rating for the stock,” Shawn Ingram reports for TheStreet. “The analyst also raised its EPS estimates for the iPhone maker. Apple should see accelerating smartphone replacement sales with the next version of the iPhone according to Canaccord analysts T. Michael Walkley and Siddharth Sinha.”
“‘Based on our analysis of global iPhone sales by region, we believe consumers slowed the pace of iPhone upgrade purchases during the iPhone 5 and 5s product cycles,’ the analysts wrote,” Ingram reports. “‘We believe the extended replacement rates combined with new larger-screen iPhones position Apple with its large installed base for record iPhone 6 sales. Further, we believe Apple will charge a premium for these larger-screen iPhones resulting in stable gross margin trends for overall Apple but with a higher gross margin dollar contribution due to an increasing revenue mix from higher ASP iPhones.'””
Read more in the full article here.
Let the games begin
Why is it that every time there is an Apple earnings report (July 22), that every analyst pumps up their expectations in the preceding weeks, and then immediately after the announcement the stock drops? Yes, I agree that long term the stock will go up, but on July 23rd some “analyst” will pull some statistic out of left field, and the stock price will drop . . . it’s as predictable as the bored media with their July “shark attack” stories or an August “Brett Favre coming out of retirement” news story.
And perma-doofus Colin Gillis still has a $78.57 target and a “Hold” rating on AAPL.
Gillis…questioned the long-term prospects for Apple…” “I would not be chasing it here,” he said. “My main complaint or concern about Apple is that it’s still a hardware company… They are weak in the services layer.”
So where’s Eddie Zabitsky these days?