Apple Price Target Raised To $520 From $431 At Morgan Stanley
Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty raised the firm's price target on Apple (AAPL) to $520 from $431 and keeps an Overweight rating on the shares.
While she is still valuing Apple using a sum-of-the-parts based valuation to "best capture the strength of Apple's ecosystem," Huberty said she has adjusted her comps to better reflect the market valuation of a range of hardware businesses blended with software and Internet peers with similar end-market exposure or business models.
On an enterprise value to free cash flow basis, the stock trades at a 2% discount to tech platforms and 10% discount to consumer platforms, according to Huberty, who argues that this indicates Apple shares are not as expensive as peers and have "further room to run."
Huberty points to the fact that Apple has generated 6% year-over-year revenue growth and 12% year-over-year EPS growth over the last four quarters despite iPhone revenue declining 1% year-over-year in that time as evidence of a lower reliance on the iPhone to drive growth and as proof of the strength of Apple's broad ecosystem of products and services.
Disclosure: None.
That news might be impressive if it were from at least 1 month ago, but given that $AAPL has been above $431 for almost a month and today was with $5 of their new higher forecast, its a bit of a DUH forecast.