No one would blame you if you’re confused about Apple on Wednesday, because apparently, the Street is confused too.
Obviously, you’re supposed to just treat the stock like you would treat the products: buy it and enjoy.
And that’s the message coming from BofAML’s Wamsi Mohan who lifted his target to a street-high $220 on Wednesday citing, among other things, cash repatriation (think: M&A and shareholder returns) and a better mix (higher-margin services revenue). Long story short, the 46% 2017 gain ain’t enough for ol’ Wamsi who’s “got a fever” – and the only prescription is more Apple.
But don’t tell that to Longbow’s Shawn Harrison, because Shawn isn’t similarly afflicted. In fact, he’s out cutting Apple to neutral from buy because when it comes to Tim Cook’s colossus, “good” ain’t good enough. “A good, not great iPhone cycle may lead to FY18 iPhone unit sales missing consensus expectations,” Harrison muses, adding that “checks now indicate mid-to-high single-digit FY18 iPhone shipment growth, compared with consensus expectations for 11% growth.”
Who fucking cares, right? Not us, that’s for sure. But there are only so many Bitcoin posts you can write in a given morning, and so we thought we’d do like Wamsi says Apple is doing and work towards a “better mix”.
Obviously, the Street is still overtly bullish. Apple has 34 buys, 10 holds and no sells.
One thing worth noting, you better hope Wamsi is more right than Harrison because Apple accounted for 7% of the S&P’s performance in 2017.
