Apple Has Struggled So Far This Year, But Here’s Why Investors Should Hold Their Position…

It’s been a tough stretch thus far through 2024 for Apple (AAPL), which is down more than 6% year-to-date. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 index is up 8%. So what’s going on with this stock, and should you be concerned as an AAPL investor?

One analyst thinks it’s just a matter of investors not realizing just how impressive the company’s performance has been. Wamsi Mohan with Bank of America says that in the past shareholders have overlooked gross margins and it could be happening right before our eyes once again.

Mohan referenced an example from 2018 when Wall Street was looking to Apple for gross margins of 39%, yet the company easily delivered 44%. 

Fast forward to today, and the expectation is that Apple could push margin growth upwards of 180 basis points from a product standpoint and 150 basis points in the services segment. 

This could be driven by cost savings as the company scales up, bringing server chip sourcing in-house and becoming less dependent on public cloud providers. Further to this point, Apple could benefit from using its own internal modem. The point is, there is massive upside potential from a margin standpoint just when cutting costs alone.

But, there’s also reason to believe Apple will start raising prices on individual hardware devices as consumers have shown that they’re willing to pay a premium for the latest and greatest tech. The company didn’t raise its prices last fall, although it did do away with its cheapest iPhone Pro Max storage configuration.

While it’s been a rocky road to this point for AAPL, the stock has been trending in the right direction over the past week – it’s up 4%. So, where does all this leave current or prospective investors? We took a look at this opportunity in the VectorVest stock analysis software and found 3 things you need to see right now…

AAPL Has Fair Upside Potential and Timing With Good Safety

VectorVest is a proprietary stock rating system designed to save you time and stress while empowering you to win more trades. It delivers actionable insights in just 3 simple ratings: relative value (RV), relative safety (RS), and relative timing (RT).

Each rating sits on its own scale of 0.00-2.00 with 1.00 being the average, making interpretation quick and easy. But it gets even easier. You’re given a clear buy, sell, or hold recommendation for any given stock at any given time based on its overall VST rating. Here’s what we found for AAPL:

• Fair Upside Potential: The RV rating compares a stock’s long-term price appreciation potential (forecasted 3 years out), AAA corporate bond rates, and risk. This is a far more valuable insight than the typical comparison of price to value alone. AAPL has a fair RV rating of 1.01 right now. 
• Good Safety: The RS rating is a risk indicator. It’s calculated through a deep analysis of the company’s financial consistency & predictability, debt-to-equity ratio, business longevity, sales volume, price volatility, and other factors. The RS rating of 1.22 is good for AAPL.
• Fair Timing: The RT rating assesses the direction, dynamics, and magnitude of a stock’s price movement. It’s taken day over day, week over week, quarter over quarter, and year over year to paint the full picture of a stock’s price trend. Despite a lackluster performance through 2024, AAPL still has a fair RT rating of 1.05.

The overall VST rating of 1.10 is good for AAPL, but the stock is currently rated a HOLD. However, we encourage you to take a closer look at the opportunity in front of you with a free stock analysis at VectorVest today! Work smarter, not harder, with VectorVest.

Want These Types of Insights at Your Fingertips so You Can Win More Trades?

Use VectorVest to analyze any stock free. VectorVest is the only stock analysis tool and portfolio management system that analyzes, ranks and graphs over 18,000 stocks each day for value, safety, and timing and gives a clear buy, sell or hold rating on every stock, every day.

VectorVest advocates buying safe, undervalued stocks, rising in price. AAPL has struggled through 2024, lagging behind the S&P 500 by a wide margin. That being said, there is reason to believe the company can deliver impressive margin growth going forward. The stock itself has fair upside potential and timing with good safety.

Before you invest, check VectorVest! Click here to ANALYZE ANY STOCK FREE and see our system in action!