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Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) Has Wall Street Utterly Confused
Apple Inc. Has Wall Street Utterly Confused
Date Published: 2016-03-10Author: Ophir Gottlieb
Preface
One look at the analyst estimate changes over the last quarter for Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) reveals one obvious fact: Wall Street is utterly confused about Apple's future.
STORY
Apple beat earnings last quarter and that sent the stock higher. In fact, the price had dipped to an $89 handle and the panic was setting in. Calls for the end of Apple were abound. Of course, while earnings still shrank, the results came in much better than anticipated and suddenly Apple's stock is the new black.
Here's a great chart from CMLviz.com that illustrates the Apple share price relative to its moving averages and 52 week range.
Look how the current price (the blue dot) is above the purple dots, which are the 200-, 50- and 10-day moving averages, respectively.
This is a new kind of stock chart -- one built for traders that bypasses the weaknesses of only looking at a time series. In any case, Apple Inc. stock has risen considerably, and, for the technically oriented trader, has in fact broken above the major near-term hurdles.
While the stock has recovered, Wall Street analysts are far from coming to any real consensus on Apple's future. Here is one of the oddest views of analyst coverage change you will ever see for a company as large as Apple.
That raw data comes from ZACKS, and is organized on the "Analyst App" from CMLviz.
In what looks like an open argument between Wall Street analysts, nine times in the last quarter estimates have been taken higher while ten times estimates have been taken lower. Granted, earnings came out less than a month ago so some of those downgrades ahead of earning could now be upgrades after earnings. But, whatever the case, Wall Street can't seem to get hold of a singular narrative for Apple -- something that was unthinkable two years ago.
The author is long shares of Apple Inc.
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