by Stephen Quickel, editor US Investment Report
Can Apple Inc. (AAPL)
return to the $700 level? Whether its does or not, I suspect that the
stock will be one of the outstanding comeback stories during the year
ahead.
Indeed, even if it rebounds to $600 or so, that's a 20%
gain. Most investors would settle for that. And chances are it will do
much better over time, given Apple's knack for coming up with new
products.
Short sellers have cleaned up since they began bum-rapping Apple in late 2012. Three observations are appropriate:
- The
short positions, while rising rapidly early in the fall, never amounted
to more than a few percent of the outstanding shares at their peak.
- The stock was probably overdue for correction, having zoomed 9-fold since March 2009.
- The
consensus of 50-plus Wall Street analysts covering AAPL still calls for
20%-plus a year earnings growth going forward, with a target price of
$762.
Apple, in case you hadn't noticed, is selling iPads and
iPhones at record levels while its stock has been under attack, in just
about every corner of the world.
Whether
or not Apple comes up with a TV-type product, as current speculation
has it, one would be mistaken to assume that this enormously talented
company has run out of its creative juices.
At some point, to be
sure, the law of large numbers comes into play; Apple one day will grow
at a slower percentage pace just because it has grown so large. But at
$150 billion in revenues, we aren't there yet.
Last year, my Top
Pick for this report was the then much-battered Amazon,, which has since
rebounded more than 40%. Can Apple make it two winning calls in a row?
Apple
is risky. The stock, after all, trades well below its 50-day and
200-day moving averages. But there's noting wrong with buying into a
fundamentally strong company when it's down.
This has the
earmarks of a good buying opportunity, especially in a steadily
improving economy and federal fiscal issues resolved. Nor, however, is
there anything wrong with waiting for a confirming rally in AAPL before
jumping in.