Stock analysts are giving the thumbs up to Apple. Our favorite computer company’s stocks rose 89 cents to US $25.55 after the analyst firm of UBS Warburg raised the stock rating to “strong buy” from “hold.” The firm also upped Apple’s second- and third-quarter earnings estimates.
USB Warburg analyst Donald Young said “strong new products” will boost the computer maker to $30.50 in 12 months, according to a Bloomberg article. The analyst also said that those aforementioned products “Apple’s ability to be a leader in developing pervasive computing opportunities” should prove a winning combination.
“We remain concerned about the outlook for technology spending — but we expect Apple riding new product strength to be able to make its own weather and outperform its Wintel hardware peers,” Young told Ample, a UK-based financial Web site.
For Apple’s full-year 2003, he raised his EPS estimate to 85 cents from 72 cents, markedly above the current First Call/Thomson Financial consensus estimate of 52 cents. “While the company will unlikely be able to meet Wall Street expectations for its second quarter to March “because of the supply constraints and rapid channel stocking very late in the quarter,” its second-half earnings outlook will likely overshadow the anticipated shortfall, Young said.
Meanwhile, UBS Warburg cut its 2002 unit shipment forecast for Dell computer o reflect 16 percent year-over-growth to 19.7 million units, down from an earlier estimate for 29 percent growth on a cautious stance on corporate IT spending, according to a CBS MarketWatch report. The broker also took down its fiscal 2003 revenue estimate on Dell by 2 percent to $33.8 billion.