Apple
touched a $3 trillion market capitalization in U.S. premarket trading on Friday, with the tech giant poised to firm up a record valuation after a remarkable rally to start the year. Wall Street still says the stock is a screaming buy, even at those levels.
Shares in
Apple
(ticker: AAPL) are up 46% so far this year, beating the performances of the
Dow Jones Industrial Average,
S&P 500,
and tech-heavy
Nasdaq
—up 3%, 15%, and 30%, respectively.
Apple briefly topped $3 trillion in trading in early 2022, but has never successfully closed above that milestone level. The number to watch: $190.734. Shares in Apple were 0.8% higher in Friday premarket trading, sitting at $191.10.
“Apple is set to break the exclusive $3 trillion market cap today in what will be viewed as a historic day for the tech sector,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives wrote in a Friday note. “The Apple bears and skeptics continue to scratch their heads as many have called for Apple’s ‘broken growth story’ this year in a tougher backdrop to which we firmly believe the exact opposite has happened.”
And the stock is still good for gains, according to Wall Street, with the shares garnering an average rating of Buy among almost 40 analysts surveyed by FactSet.
Analysts at Citi joined the chorus of bulls on Thursday, initiating coverage of Apple with a Buy rating and $240 target price, implying gains of 27% from Thursday’s closing price of $189.59.
“Apple is navigating the macro slowdown and inflationary pressure on consumer spending by consistently gaining share from Android phones, we see ~30% further upside potential from current levels,” the analysts wrote in a note.
“We believe the Street is underestimating continued gross margin expansion,” they added, noting that a shift in iPhone sales toward the premium segment, further share gains in China and India, continued self-design of chips, and higher margin services sales mix were all tailwinds.
Write to Jack Denton at [email protected]
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