Shares of Apple Inc. are starting 2024 with a selloff, after Barclays analyst Tim Long said it was “time for a breather,” citing weak hardware sales as iPhone 15 demand disappoints. “We are still picking up weakness on iPhone volumes and mix, as well as a lack of bounce-back in Macs, iPads and wearables,” Long wrote in a note to clients. “The biggest takeaway from the latest checks is incrementally worse [iPhone] 15 data points out of China, together with developed markets remaining soft.”
He cut his rating on the stock
AAPL,
-0.54%
to underweight from neutral, and trimmed his price target to $160 from $161. The new target implies about 17% downside from Friday’s closing price of $192.53. The stock slumped 1.8% in premarket trading Tuesday, putting it on track to open at a seven-week low. Long said iPhone 15 sales have been “lackluster” and believes Phone 16 sales will be the same, as he expects other hardware categories to remain weak. He said it’s time for investors to take a “breather” on the stock, as he doesn’t think it can keep rallying in the face of downbeat demand data, like it did in 2023. “We expect reversion after a year when most quarters were missed and the stock outperformed,” Long wrote. He expects Apple to report “in-line” fiscal first-quarter results, which runs through December, but he trimmed his second-quarter to further below consensus expectations. He now expects earnings per share and revenue for the …
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He cut his rating on the stock
AAPL,
-0.54%
to underweight from neutral, and trimmed his price target to $160 from $161. The new target implies about 17% downside from Friday’s closing price of $192.53. The stock slumped 1.8% in premarket trading Tuesday, putting it on track to open at a seven-week low. Long said iPhone 15 sales have been “lackluster” and believes Phone 16 sales will be the same, as he expects other hardware categories to remain weak. He said it’s time for investors to take a “breather” on the stock, as he doesn’t think it can keep rallying in the face of downbeat demand data, like it did in 2023. “We expect reversion after a year when most quarters were missed and the stock outperformed,” Long wrote. He expects Apple to report “in-line” fiscal first-quarter results, which runs through December, but he trimmed his second-quarter to further below consensus expectations. He now expects earnings per share and revenue for the …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]