The trade on APPL ahead of Thursday’s earnings, according to analysts
When Apple reports earnings on Thursday, investors will pay close attention to what the smartphone maker has to say about growth in its services division, developments in artificial intelligence and iPhone sales. Analysts expect Apple's fiscal third-quarter revenue to come in at $81.7 billion, a 2.3% drop from the year prior, according to StreetAccount estimates. They anticipate earnings per share of $1.19. However, the quarter ending in June is typically Apple's slowest of the year. Therefore, Wall Street is looking for what the company may have to say about the current, fiscal fourth quarter. Apple is expected to release its latest iPhone in September, although there have been some rumblings on the Street about a possible delay. Several analysts remain bullish, hiking their price targets in the weeks leading up to Apple's earnings report — despite the stock's 50% runup so far this year. AAPL YTD mountain Apple year to date On Tuesday, for example, JPMorgan analyst Samik Chatterjee increased his price target to $235 for December 2024, up from $190 for December 2023. The new target implies 20% upside from Tuesday's close. He sees a shift away from Apple's dependence on product cycles thanks to its services division. "We see Apple well positioned to drive higher confidence from the upcoming earnings print as an 'earnings compounder' that continues to drive resilient performance," Chatterjee wrote in a note to clients. Morgan Stanley is also bullish on the maker of iPads and iMacs. The investment bank expects Apple's results to largely match estimates. However, it believes the company's guidance for revenue and gross margin for the September quarter will be "materially higher" than current consensus estimates thanks to stable iPhone builds, seasonal strength in Mac, low-teens service growth and continued margin tailwinds, analyst Erik Woodring wrote in a note July 24. "History shows that this kind of setup drives the greatest outperformance in Apple's stock in the day, week and month post-earnings, with Apple outperforming the S & P 500 by 10 points, on average, in the month after raising September quarter guidance over the last decade," he said. His $220 price target suggests the stock can rally more than 12% from Tuesday's close. Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs analyst Michael Ng is expecting Apple to top consensus estimates with earnings per share of $1.21 for the third quarter. While he recognizes concern around Apple's big rally this year, he believes the company is a long-term earnings and free cash flow compounder, which supports a premium valuation. "We recognize investor concerns around valuation and downside risks, but continue to believe that Apple's growing iPhone installed base serves as the foundation for growing monetization per user driven by [average selling price] increases, a greater number of Apple devices per iPhone user, and secular industry tailwinds & share gain opportunities in several of Apple's Services categories," he wrote in a July 25 note. Bank of America remains neutral on the stock, but boosted its price target to $210 on July 19. Analyst Wamsi Mohan expects an in-line quarter, but anticipates fourth-quarter revenue guidance to come in below Wall Street estimates. "We expect F4Q guide to potentially be impacted by launch timing of the iPhone 15 that based on our checks could be delayed by a few weeks (as of now). We are hence modeling minimal new (iPhone 15 series) revenue contribution in the Sep Qtr and now model rev/EPS of $87.1bn/$1.34 vs. Street at $91.6bn/1.38," Mohan wrote in a note to clients. Barclays also sees the fourth quarter "at risk," analyst Tim Long wrote in a July 25 note. His price target of $149 suggests nearly 24% downside. "Sep-Q hardware guide could miss Street estimates due to IP15 delay and some IP15 pro model units shifting to Dec-Q. Per our Asia checks, IP15 is running 3-4 weeks behind owing to Titanium alloy frame casing, camera module and large screen production challenge," he said. However, UBS's check found that while suppliers were still working on improving yields, the launch is still expected to go off on time, analyst Grace Chen wrote in a note Monday. "iPhone assemblers viewed it is normal that some vendors in the supply chain may face yield rate issues initially when ramping up new iPhone models, but the whole supply chain is still striving to meet the mid-September launch target," she said. That said, Chen remains neutral on the stock and models a 10% year-over-year decrease in the estimated iPhone build for 2023 thanks to inflation-pressured consumers. Her price target of $190 suggests roughly 3% downside from Tuesday's close. Several other Wall Street firms boosted their price targets this week. Piper Sandler and TD Cowen hiked their target to $220 from $195 and $180, respectively. Baird raised its target to $204 from $180. — CNBC's Michael Bloom and Kif Leswing contributed reporting.
Source: CNBC
