UPDATE: Barclays Downgrades Apple Inc. to Equal-weight, Maintains $570.00 PT
9:10a ET February 20, 2014 (Benzinga)
Barclays downgraded Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) from Overweight to Equalweight Thursday morning,
maintaining a $570 price target.
Ben Reitzes, analyst at Barclays, sees shares staying in a trading range for the the next year, “given
a maturing smart phone market.” In addition, iPhone margins be squeezed, “as it adds advanced new
features” such as “Sapphire glass, curved glass, and new batteries.” Reitzes does not believe smart
watches or Apple TVs justify raising sales numbers.
The analyst compares Apple's valuation of today to that of Microsoft from 2000 to 2010 and sees, “no
precedent that large-size tech companies simply start to broadly outperform again after a tough year
or two if the law of large numbers is catching up to them and margins have peaked.”
In summary, an attractive valuation is not enough to jump into the stock as Apple could be a value trap
for the next couple years, according to Reitzes.
Shares of Apples are trading lower by 0.8 percent in the premarket following the downgrade.
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