“In a report published Monday, analysts at Brean Capital initiated coverage of Apple Inc. with a Buy rating and a price target of $160,” Jim Swanson writes for Benzinga.
“Brean Capital is optimistic about Apple’s ability to deliver significant EPS upside of 15-20 percent, driven by higher than anticipated iPhone shipments through 2017, favorable gross margins from the iPhones and iPhone mix, as well as opex leverage at least throught 2016, as the recent iWatch and iPhone 6 investment cycles bear fruit,” Swanson writes. “According to the analysts, there is gross margin upside through 2017 as well. ‘This is predicated on two reasons: 1) we believe that iPhones carry 45% GM vs. AAPL corporate GM of 40% and 2) we believe that Street is under-estimating the % of iPhone ships that are the 60% GM iPhone 6 Plus (which we believe could be up to 1/3 of iPhone unit ships; we believe Street could be closer to 25%+ mix wise),’ Brean Capital explained.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: This is all well and good, but Wall Street still doesn’t get it. If you think Apple is big now, you’re in for quite a shock.
Although I agree $160 is possible, philosophically why would anyone pay attention to Brean Capital? If they are just now initiating coverage on Apple, they are several decades behind.
Help out a neophyte. What specifically does it mean… initiate coverage?
New guy who will set improbable target prices then tells clients to sell and take profits and causes stock price dive.
Will tomorrow see $142.86?
Don’t count on it. Look at Tesla today up 7% and supposedly the company won’t be profitable for years. Apple shareholders will be very, very lucky to see half those gains with Apple posting massive profits and increased dividends and stock repurchases. Wall Street is about as crooked as can be when a company like Microsoft and its shareholders can get bigger gains based solely on arbitrarily low expectations being surpassed. Hopefully Apple’s share price will pass $137 or so but no large share price boost is guaranteed for Apple shareholders.