The right P-E ingredients may bake in a return to growth for Apple chief Tim Cook. (Getty Images)
Apple, whose shares have tumbled 25 percent this year, may be ready to turn things around, some on Wall Street are forecasting.
The tech titan, which reports results for its fiscal second quarter today, has been so beaten down that any upbeat news could move the shares up, one analyst noted.
“Jump in the fire, as any Apple good news could boost up the stock,” Colin Gillis of BGC Partners told clients yesterday as he put a buy rating on shares.
Expectations are already low for Apple’s results for the quarter. The company is likely to post its first year-over-year earnings decline in about a decade, a sign of the slowing growth that has spooked investors.
Shares of the Cupertino, Calif., company have tumbled 45 percent since its all-time high of $702.10 last Sept. 19. They closed yesterday at $398.67, up 2.1 percent.
Apple forecast up to $43 billion in sales for the quarter that ended in March. Analysts estimate closer to $42 billion in sales.
Last year, the company sold more than 35 million iPhones in the March quarter, a number it might struggle to match this year.
Still, the negativity surrounding the company is as much about narrative as it is about reality. Investors abandoned the company at the end of last year in search of new growth opportunities.
At the same time, rivals like Samsung and Google stole the mobile innovation mantle that was once Apple’s exclusively.
It has become widely accepted that Apple has to play catch-up — for example, by developing lower-end iPhones to appeal to the next wave of smartphone buyers, who by definition have less means.
Also, Apple watchers have said the company needs a larger, 5-inch iPhone to match Samsung. It may need a new market to conquer — whether it’s smartwatches or TVs.
JPMorgan analyst Mark Moskowitz expects Apple to “reverse course,” and predicts more solid profit margins and iPhone sales than most investors are expecting.
“Apple trades like a value stock,” he wrote in a note to clients.
The company trades at a 9.1 price-to-earnings multiple — well below the 17 of Google and the 14 average for all tech rivals, JPMorgan noted.
“We continue to believe Apple shares are substantially undervalued,” analysts at a third Wall street shop, Crowell Weedon, wrote to its clients yesterday.
Wall Street sees potential for Apple to regain momentum today, particularly if it announces a plan to return a portion of its $137 billion in cash to shareholders.
“We expect an acceleration in the back half of the year with significant new product releases,” Maynard Um, a Wells Fargo analyst wrote to clients, putting a price target of $600 to $630 on Apple shares.