Apple shares rebound as UBS ups price target to $108

[AppleInsider]

Shares of Apple Computer rose over 2 percent to regained some of Monday's losses after UBS Investment Research issued a bullish research note in which it raised its price target on the iPod maker.

Analyst Ben Reitzes, who maintains a Buy rating on shares of Apple, increased his price target to $108 from $95, citing healthy sales of iPod digital music players during the early going of the holiday shopping season.

"Our checks point toward solid iPod sales for new shuffles & certain nanos along with momentum in Macs and prospects for higher accessories & software longer-term," he wrote in a note to clients.

Reitzes bumped his estimates on the Cupertino, Calif.-based company for the December quarter to $0.80 in earnings per shares on 11 percent revenue growth to $6.4 billion, up from $0.78 and $6.3 billion. He also increased his quarterly iPod unit sales forecast by approximately 1 million units to 16.56 million, but made no changes to his Mac model of 44 percent growth to 1.8 million units.

Looking ahead to fiscal 2007, the analyst said Apple's higher Mac sales may lead to better sales of software, which he estimates will grow 22 percent to $1.56 billion in revenue. He's modeling the company to earn $2.84 per share on 23 percent revenue growth to $23.76B, up from $2.75 and $23.25 billion.

"Also, we wouldn’t be surprised to see Apple pull up the launch date of its new OSX Leopard in order to pre-empt Microsoft Vista," he told clients. "Another area that could benefit in [fiscal 2007] is sales of "other music & accessories" as Apple sells more movies (we believe Apple will sign-up more movie studios for iTunes beyond just Disney)."

Assuming Apple can maintain its Mac share gains and continue to reinvigorate the iPod line with video, gaming and WiFi-related features, Reitzes projects the company will earn $3.35 per share on 18 percent revenue growth to $28 billion in fiscal 2008.

"We continue to believe Apple will launch new products in calendar '07 including cell phones, iTV and even ultraportable devices," he wrote.

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

[128pluspb100siduo230]

Ist post

The higher the stock the more Apple goodies I'll be giving this xmas

[SpamSandwich]

The more analysts agree, the more worried I'll be.

[vinney57]

These guys are just 'cking geniuses. I don't know how we would mange without them.

[Booga]

I wish they'd stop predicting an early release for Leopard. It wouldn't be so bad to release after the Vista hubbub has died down, and you definitely don't want to rush these things. Predicting early releases like this just gives people negative feelings when Apple releases on time.

[sunilraman]

I don't feel it's so much a "shares rebound" as maybe we've just been looking at small fluctuations in the past few days.

[sunilraman]

Originally Posted by SpamSandwich

The more analysts agree, the more worried I'll be.

This Ben will have you hiding in your den...!

[sunilraman]

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

Shares of Apple Computer rose over 2 percent to regained some of Monday's losses after UBS Investment Research issued a bullish research note in which it raised its price target on the iPod maker.

Cause and effect - are we sure share rise was *directly* due to UBS research note?

Originally Posted by Ben

Analyst Ben Reitzes, who maintains a Buy rating on shares of Apple, increased his price target to $108 from $95, citing healthy sales of iPod digital music players during the early going of the holiday shopping season.

"Our checks point toward solid iPod sales for new shuffles & certain nanos along with momentum in Macs and prospects for higher accessories & software longer-term," he wrote in a note to clients.

Yes, clearly holiday frenzy buying means longer term sales through 2007 - because people are constantly buying presents and get end-of-year work bonuses every month.

Originally Posted by Ben

"Also, we wouldn’t be surprised to see Apple pull up the launch date of its new OSX Leopard in order to pre-empt Microsoft Vista," he told clients.

Totally ridiculous. Apple will let Vista come out fully and fumble around so that 1. Vista will not copy Leopard in 11th-hour final builds/ updates, 2. Apple can develop Leopard to work well with Vista (native or virtualised), 3. Apple has all the time it needs to time Leopard sales into the slower financial quarters of the year. Which may be Jan-Mar 2007 but that seems early. March at the earliest, IMO.

Originally Posted by Ben

Assuming Apple can maintain its Mac share gains and continue to reinvigorate the iPod line with video, gaming and WiFi-related features.

This guy is gold. "Reinvigorate with WiFi features" -- for squirting purposes, I suppose. Though okay, fair enough, he's just saying, "there might be new iPods". Mmm.... fantastic research, that.

Originally Posted by Ben

"We continue to believe Apple will launch new products in calendar '07 including cell phones, iTV and even ultraportable devices,"...

Mmm.... "Ultraportable devices" --- like what, Ben? Sounds like you totally pulled that out of your a55.

[sunilraman]

Boy, am I nasty this morning. ...Don't read too much into my attitude here. Analysts do offer "information" to people that are not in the flow about a company, if you're a fund manager or general investor, you do not have the time to be so immersed in a company's product, services, and future offerings that we have the priviledge of doing. Also the analysts have a ton of other stocks to lift or push down depending on their strategies. Frack me, when I grow up I wanna be an anlayst...!!!

[sthiede]

leopard is supposed to come out spring of 2007, which at latest is late may. it is very possible apple plans to be done around feb-mar so they can say like "wow were done early, and vista was soooo late!" and that sort of thing. it will make apple look more on the ball. and i agree with everything sunilraman said

[mdriftmeyer]

FWIW: UBS now owns Piper Jaffrey Private Client Arm. For those that have Piper accounts this is not news, but to this board one should expect to see the UBS name more often.

http://www.piperjaffray.com/

On Aug. 11, 2006, Piper Jaffray completed the sale of its Private Client Service branch network to UBS Financial Services.

[sunilraman]

Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer

FWIW: UBS now owns Piper Jaffrey Private Client Arm. For those that have Piper accounts this is not news, but to this board one should expect to see the UBS name more often.
http://www.piperjaffray.com/

How does this place Gene Munster, he's made a lot of fairly decent reporting for PiperJaffray... ? ...One of, if the only, analyst, that was pretty reasonable, AFAIK.

[sunilraman]

Since breaching the all-time high psychological "ceiling" of around $90, past few days have not led to a rally up to $100. Hmmm... When will the $100 come?

[willrob]

The ceiling of $93 was broken a few times recently. When will 100 come? When the market starts to eally believe Apple will go to 110. It can't go from 91 to 100 until there are people willing to buy the stock at that price, in the anticipation of it going much higher. Wold you buy at 99 if 100 was the ceiling? After xmas we might see analyst's rating increase again, or near or after MacWorld.

[sunilraman]

The analysts are trying to push $100 by Christmas -- look at all their Buy ratings and $100+ price targets. They're trying to push the hype some more, but the market is holding back for some reason.