Citi slashes Apple price target, shares continue fall

Citi today cut its Apple price target from $240 to $200 citing China concerns.
Citi analysts said in a note to investors, “While we do not expect Apple to miss its sales guidance we do expect consensus to come lower closer to our lowered estimates in the weeks ahead. We do not expect China to ban or impose additional tariffs on Apple. However, we note that should this occur Apple has material exposure [18 percent of total sales] to China.”
Citi does not expect Apple to miss its own guidance of “revenue between $89 billion and $93 billion,” but said it sees the company reporting “towards the lower end.”
“We have found the legacy iPhones are doing better than expected due to the price reductions which makes the legacy iPhones more affordable in developing countries,” Citi said in its note. In the firm’s bear case, Citi sees AAPL dropping as low as $125 a share if Apple’s revenue growth slows to 2 percent to 3 percent a year and gross margins are much weaker than expected. Apple has guided for a gross margin “between 38 percent and 38.5 percent.”
MacDailyNews Take: Predictable lemming behavior.
When the lemmings, er… “analysts” start their upgrade parade, then you’ll know the bottom has been found. – MacDailyNews, November 26, 2018
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In fiscal year 2018, Apple’s revenue grew over $36 billion to $265.6 billion. For the current quarter, Apple has guided for revenue between $89 billion and $93 billion, a new all-time record. (That’s revenue of roughly $1 billion — with a “B“ — per day.)
When analysts learn to see without the unit share blinders Apple has just removed, hopefully their eyes won’t pop out of their heads when they finally see those huge numbers and realize how very much more is to come. — MacDailyNews, November 28, 2018
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “Lynn Weiler” for the heads up.]