Analyst slaps a rare “sell” rating on Apple
Apple watcher Craig Moffett made the call in light of what he calls “a steady drumbeat of bad news.”
Don’t be fooled by the 10% run-up in share price over the last three months, says tech analyst Craig Moffett. The upturn in Apple has come amid a drip, drip, drip of downbeat headlines that threaten to weigh on the company going forward, he wrote.
“A Federal Judge (Amit Mehta) had declared the payments Google makes to Apple each year for Google’s preferred (default) search position to be illegal. Apple’s position in China has steadily weakened. The Vision Pro, already expected to be something of a bust, has disappointed even the low expectations that had been set for it. And while the incoming Trump Administration is likely to exempt Apple from import tariffs, there is a genuine risk that Apple will be targeted with retaliatory tariffs in countries negatively impacted by U.S. import duties in unrelated categories.”
But most worrisome, Moffett says, is the “the lukewarm (we’re being charitable here) response consumers have given Apple’s first suite of AI features.”
For the record, as of yesterday, two-thirds of the analysts covering Apple still have a buy or overweight rating on the stock, though that’s down from nearly 80% that saw Apple as a buy back in January 2023. And while the Street seems bullish on the surface, the average 12-month price target is less than 2% above where the iPhone maker is currently trading.
Moffett is the senior research analyst at MoffettNathanson, an independent research provider specializing in the TMT sectors. His price target of $188 implies a more than 20% decline for Apple.
