Apple reported record-breaking results for its March quarter on Wednesday, taking Wall Street by surprise. In response, Goldman Sachs has reversed its Sell rating for Apple stock to Neutral (via Yahoo Finance).
$AAPL Stock Analysis
In a note posted on Thursday, analyst Rod Hall said:
We are upgrading our rating from Sell to Neutral after Apple posted another large beat and implied a raise vs. our June revenue expectations. Our original view that the iPhone cycle would disappoint in the midst of COVID was clearly wrong. Not only has Apple done better than we expected on iPhone during the cycle but Mac and iPad have also materially outperformed our forecasts.
Mr. Hall also acknowledges the fact that after he rated $AAPL as Sell on Goldman Sachs’ America’s Sell List, shares have increased to 86%. Here’s how Apple’s results compared to Wall Street’s estimates:
- Revenue: US$89.58 billion versus US$77.3 billion expected
- Earnings per share: US$1.40 versus US$0.99 expected
- iPhone revenue: US$47.9 billion versus US$41.5 billion expected
- iPad revenue: US$7.8 billion versus US$5.6 billion expected
- Mac revenue: US$9.1 billion versus US$6.8 billion expected
Apple also raised its quarterly dividend for shareholders to US$0.22, an increase of 7%, and said it was putting another US$90 billion into its share repurchase program.
“taking Wall Street by surprise”
As usual.