As directional indicators, magazine covers are about to go the way of the weather vane any month now, so why let a good one go to waste?
I’m referring to this week’s Bloomberg Businessweek cover photo of Tim Cook and Apple design gurus Jony Ive and Craig Federighi under the headline “What, us worry?”
The tongue-in-cheek question is presumably meant to underscore all the reasons the three should be sweating it at One Infinity Loop this weekend.
By now, even armchair investors have heard the conventional wisdom: Apple is a fallen angel that will soon go the way of Microsoft, never to regain its former luster or market valuation.
Down 10 percent during the bull market of 2013, Apple is the stock investors love to hate, even as they wait in line for hours to buy the company’s latest products. For contrarian investors, it doesn’t get much better than that.
Indeed, even though Apple’s release of its iPhone 5S and 5C provided ample opportunity in a slow news week to revisit the case against the company, the bullish pitch for Apple stock hasn’t been this strong in a long time.
Little wonder, then, that last week veteran investor Carl Icahn, who announced that he had amassed a “large position” in Apple in August, went on television to say that he was buying more.
In a TV interview, Icahn called Apple stock “very undervalued” in an overall market that he clearly believes is not. Noted short seller James Chanos echoed Icahn’s bullish assessment. Apple management clearly agrees, as the company bought $16 billion of its own stock in the quarter ended in June.
Icahn says he will meet with Apple CEO Cook sometime this month, and he will surely press for even bigger buybacks.
Something for investors to consider as they enjoy the software upgrades on their Apple gadgets this weekend.