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Strategies & Market Trends : The New Economy and its Winners -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (39286)	1/23/2008 4:02:56 PM
From: bob zagorin	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 57684

More Street Opinions on Apple by Eric Savitz As promised, I’ve collected some more comments from the Street on Apple’s (AAPL) strong performance for the fiscal first quarter ended December, and its disappointing guidance for the March quarter. Opinions vary widely: some see a huge buying opportunity, but others see no catalysts for the stock until the company gets around to unveiling a 3G iPhone, perhaps sometime this summer. There was at least one downgrade, and at least one upgrade. Here are some excerpts from Wednesday morning’s batch of research reports: Toni Sacconaghi, Bernstein Research: Cut FY ‘08 EPS to $5.27 from $5.30; ups ‘09 to $6.50 from $6.35. Maintains Market Perform rating. Sacconaghi says he is “incrementally more positive” on the stock given the recent pullback. He says there are risks to revenue from a weakening economy, but that gross margin and EPS expectations for the March quarter appear relatively conservative at this point. Darren Aftahi, ThinkEquity: Cut price target to $165 from $227; ‘08 EPS estimate to $5.18 from $5.44; ‘09 to $5.93 from $6.11. He keeps his Buy rating, and advises investors to “look past the conservative guidance to the broader digital media ecosystem and robust cash flow generation engine Apple is building in mobile, PCs, and in the future, the living room.” Charlie Wolf, Needham: Raised rating to Strong Buy from Buy, “chiefly on the prospect that the current migration of Windows users to the Mac platform is likely to accelerate over the next several years.” Mike Abramsky, RBC: Maintains Above Average rating, cuts target to $200 from $215. He notes that “recession concerns may further restrain APPL’s valuation multiple pending recovering investor confidence.” Matthew Kather, W.R. Hambrecht: Maintains Buy rating, and raises target to $218 from $203. He advises using weakness “to patiently accumulate shares” in anticipation of new products in the May/June timeframe, including a 3G iPhone. Richard Gardner, Citigroup: Repeats Buy rating; trims target to $212 from $215. Gardner says the sell-off is overdone, and this morning advised aggressive buying on weakness. However, he did note that potential year-over-year declines in iPod units in the first half of calendar 2008 could keep the shares range-bound for several quarters. Shebly Seyrafi, Caris & Co.: He cut his rating to Above Average from Buy, and cut his price target to $165 from $225. Seyrafi contends the stock remains attractive to investors with a 12-month horizon, based on improving gross margins and “a strong new product story.” David Bailey, Goldman Sachs: Maintains Buy rating; cuts target to $175 from $220. “The nicks in Apple’s December quarter - with Macs inline and iPods coming up short - together with the current market sentiment, which punishes any blemishes, leave an overhand on the stock nearer-term,” he wrote. “That said, Apple has fundamental and valuation underpinnings, which should allow the stock to outperform on an absolute and relative basis longer term.”