Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan (heart) Apple
With Apple (AAPL) set to report quarterly earnings next Tuesday, analysts are dusting off their spreadsheets, taking a second look at the numbers, and making adjustments — mostly upward.
On Friday, it was Morgan Stanley and J.P. Morgan Securities' turn.
The J.P Morgan team, led by Mark Moskowitz, raised most of his Apple estimates, including
- Price target (to $167.50 from $155),
- Q3 earnings estimate (to $1.23 a share from $1.12)
- iPhone unit sales (to 4.34 million from 3.88 million)
- and Mac unit sales (2.50 million from 2.13 million)
Morgan Stanley's Huberty, whose sentiments about Apple tend to go hot and cold, made some even more dramatic adjustments.
Given the early launch of the iPhone 3GS, the "resulting pull forward of demand," and supply chain checks that show iPhone builds coming in higher than expected, she raised her estimate of Q3 iPhone unit sales nearly 43%, to 5.0 million from 3.5 million.
Huberty's revised Q3 revenue estimate ($8.3 billion) is in line with the consensus ($8.16 billion), as reported by Thomson Financial Network.
Moskowitz's estimated EPS ($1.23) beats the Street's ($1.16) by 6%.
Apple shares closed Thursday at $147.52, up 1.2% for the day.
Concerning Apple, Morgan Stanley’s Kathryn Huberty's track record is similar to the Jamaican boblsed team's.
Woohoo! Will I actually see a share price increase on earnings this quarter? Sweet dreams are made of this.
If you follow Huberty, you'll usually be too late to do the right thing concerning AAPL. The new iPhone was available on June 19th, and the trend could be seen by June 22nd. And here we are on July 17th…
Really don't know why she keeps her job.