The markets always consist of differing views on companies — no single person has perfect information.
This rings home as KeyBanc Capital Markets sounded a bearish call on Apple’s (AAPL) ahead of its earnings report this Thursday.
Quick insight: KeyBanc analyst Brandon Nispel reiterated an Underweight rating, or Sell, on Apple stock today. With a $250 price target, he expects Apple stock to plunge about 26% from current levels.
“With Apple providing a safe haven to the sell-off in semis, we think they are missing the bigger picture, which squarely fits our thesis: as Apple raises iPhone prices, unit growth will slow, and as unit growth slows, so will user growth, which we think ultimately will slow Services growth,” Nispel said in a note.
“In addition, with Apple trading at ~34x P/E, and a growth profile that is shifting from volume-led growth to pricing-led growth, we think investors should apply a lower valuation multiple. To us, this makes Apple overvalued at current levels,” he explained.
AlphaSpace insight: Apple stock has gained a solid 24% this year compared to a 8% advance for the S&P 500 (^GSPC).
The tech giant has become more of a safe-haven tech name. While hyperscalers such as Oracle (ORCL) and Meta (META) load up their balance sheets with debt to fuel AI ambitions — much to investors’ dismay — Apple has stayed the course. It’s focused on shipping iPhones and various other tech gadgets with little sign of a demand slowdown.
Most on Wall Street are optimistic that Apple will continue its momentum in the near-term.
“Over time, we view that continued iteration of integrated AI feature releases should (a) support longer-term demand for product offerings via installed base growth and (b) support longer-term Services growth via monetization of new first-party and third-party apps as well as greater iCloud storage demand with greater personal data and content created with AI features,” Goldman Sachs analyst Michael Ng wrote in a recent note.
The bullish rotation into Apple is evident.
Its forward price-to-earnings multiple is 31.6 times, above its 10-year average of 24.8 times. The forward enterprise value-to-EBITDA ratio is 26.9 times, above the 10-year average of 18.3 times. And the forward enterprise value-to-sales ratio is 8.8 times, above the 10-year average of 6.2 times.
Bottom line: Opposing views make a market. Nispel offers up several solid reasons to be bearish on Apple. However, his reasons may take time to play out. By then, Apple may have tossed up a few more quarters that support a higher stock price.