Neil Hughes
Shares of Apple stock took an unexpected slide on Thursday, and dragged the larger market down as a whole with it, after a high-profile Japanese bank downgraded its rating on the iPhone maker to "neutral."
Mizuho Securities issued a note to investors on Thursday, saying it believes the risk-reward level for shares of AAPL is "well-balanced at the current level." The firm has pegged the upside for AAPL stock at between $130 and $140, while the downside is in the mid-$80s, according to Reuters.
The Japanese investment banking and securities firm is the second-biggest financial services conglomerate in Japan. The update from Mizuho Securities was attributed to losses seen in AAPL stock on Thursday, which was down more than 2.3 percent in afternoon trading.
Shares of Apple are down more than $10 from their all-time high of $119.75, achieved in late November. But the company is still up considerably from its 52-week low of $70.51, adjusted for the 7-for-1 split that took place in June.
Apple's market capitalization level is currently valued at around $630 billion, also off from the $700-billion-plus the company achieved with its record highs in November.
Despite recent fluctuations, investors still have high hopes for Apple and its just-concluded December quarter, which is widely expected to have been an all-time best for the iPhone maker. Analysts expect Apple sold as many as 69 million iPhones in the three-month holiday span, which would crush its previous best of 51 million in the year-ago period.
Christine McKee
Charles Martin
Mike Wuerthele
William Gallagher
Amber Neely
58 Comments
buy on the dips. 4qt 2014 will be blockbuster.
More manipulation, what's their rationale? No other company of it's kind (or perhaps any kind for that matter) has such a dominant, powerful position, virtually guaranteed for the next several years or more, short of a major world conflict that drops the bottom out of consumer electronics purchases. Even during the financial crisis Apple was selling hundreds of millions of iPhones. Neither Google, Samsung or Microsoft have a chance of besting Apple anytime soon. Some hot startup isn't going to be a threat either, sophisticated hardware and software takes a long time and a lot of money to develop. Apple's downfall will be internal if it ever happens, no sign of that now.
I stopped listening to these types of reports from the so called anal-yst. With an expected record-breaking sales during the past 3 months, Apple will take in net profits the rest of the industry could only dream of.
Buy buy buy
I stopped listening to these types of reports from the so called anal-yst. With an expected record-breaking sales during the past 3 months, Apple will take in net profits the rest of the industry could only dream of.
These guys aren't looking 2 weeks down the road.