Apple’s stock price has fallen 5.9% over the first three trading days of 2024, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
Shares of Apple were falling Thursday after the iPhone maker received its second downgrade this week.
The stock was down 1.7% to $181.15, trading lower for its fourth day in a row.
Piper Sandler analysts Harsh Kumar and Robert Aguanno downgraded Apple to Neutral from Overweight and cut their price target on the shares to $205 from $220 in a wider semiconductors industry report Thursday.
The analysts said there were a few reasons for the downgrade, most of which focused on the iPhone. Piper Sandler said it was concerned about inventory levels stepping into the first half of the year, worries that “growth rates have peaked for unit sales” and a weakening macroeconomic environment in China.
Aside from the iPhone, negative headlines around the Apple Watch and other legal challenges “could be a distraction,” the Piper Sandler analysts added.
MacDailyNews Take: Dare we hope for sub-$180 ahead of earnings?
MacDailyNews Note: Based on historical earnings dates, Apple is expected to announce earnings between January 26, 2024 and February 02, 2024 (the company has not yet set a date for the release of Q124 results).
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this is when you buy … analysts are never right about Apple and they open a window every year to buy buy buy
Thank you for your article.
I don’t see a good reason to pile more money into AAPL at this point. Obviously there is a lot of media/analyst manipulation that has been going on for years. There are no big catalysts that are going to break the stock through $200 for the foreseeable future. Maybe it will incrementally get there over the course of the year, but what good does that do someone buying in at $180? Maybe a 10-15% appreciation over the course of the year if the stars align and the media/analyst psychos decide to go easy on AAPL for once?
Why not just put the money into MSFT? As much as I dislike them they are pushing the envelope with AI, they already got past the monopoly smackdown by the government, while Apple is about to deal with that assault. MSFT is up 62% over the past year while AAPL is up 39%…