Should I Buy Or Sell Apple (AAPL) Stock? 3 Pros, 3 Cons

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Apple (AAPL) is a company that hardly needs introduction. As the world’s largest public company, and the leading vendor of consumer tech devices, it has become an omnipresent brand. And shares have reflected that, notching tremendous gains throughout the 2000s.

aapl tech stocksDespite its recent woes, AAPL stock is still up 837% in the last 10 years — not including dividends. With dividends, that number goes to 870%.

Apple rode a tremendous wave, going from success to success. The iPod, iPhone, and iPad were three consecutive transformational devices that fundamentally altered the shape of music, cell phone, mobile device, and even education/reading sectors. It’s no surprise Apple’s stock price took off meteorically.

However, innovation has slowed recently, with the iWatch failing to pack a similar punch. With AAPL stock at a relatively low point now, is this the time to bet on the company regaining its mojo?

AAPL Stock Pros

Cheap Valuation: AAPL stock is among the cheapest you’ll find in the megacap stock arena. The P/E ratio is currently a meager 10.2, and once you strip out the company’s prodigious cash pile (more on that in a second), you find it trading at a P/E well below 10. This stock screams cheap.

In addition, the company screens cheaply on various other metrics. AAPL stock’s EV/EBITDA ratio of 6.6 scores well below the usual 9-10 you might expect to pay for a reasonably strong tech company. Apple hails with an unassailably strong brand. Its balance sheet is nearly debt free, with net debt accounting for less than 1/10th the total capitalization structure.

And the company has put up truly tremendous growth in recent years. 10-year compounded growth rates for the firm are nothing short of jaw-dropping. Apple has put up 10 year annualized growth of 35% for revenues and 49% for EBITDA. That’s almost unprecedented for such a large company historically.

Enormous Cash Treasury: If Apple were a person, it’d be the world’s wealthiest person more than twice over.

It has more than $216 billion in total cash reserves. Some of this is stuck overseas where it is harder to access, but still, $200 billion is an amazing figure regardless. No individual is currently worth more than $100 billion, giving AAPL a substantial lead in the wealth sweepstakes.

The company produces a gigantic sum of free cash flow. In its past year, AAPL produced $69.8 billion in free cash flow that mostly winds up adding to the cash pile. Even after paying the dividend, Apple is able to add tens of billions of dollars to its coffers annually.

New Market Development: Apple, and AAPL stock, has the potential to go any of many different ways heading into the future. At some point, it needs to plan for a post-iPhone world. iPhone sales already appear to be near a peak, and the smartphone market’s growth trajectory is rapidly falling. But Apple has all sorts of irons in the fires of the future.

While Apple’s car efforts may have hit a snag recently, it’s got potential for  TV, cloud services, mobile payments, streaming, and perhaps even a move into medtech. Apple has enough cash to purchase basically anything they want, along with the resources to operate one of the most impressive R&D teams ever seen on this planet. While success isn’t guaranteed, Apple’s management has a stacked deck in terms of finding a winning product in the next big category.

AAPL Stock Cons

This Quarter Wasn’t Good: Yes, many media reports are suggesting this most recent quarterly report, announced last week, was lackluster. But even that is to sugarcoat it. AAPL stock narrowly beat on earnings. However, Apple always beats on earnings; they are known for sandbagging on guidance so that they can blow out estimates.

Last quarter, they only squeaked by on the EPS estimate. And category sales missed on everything. iPhone, iPad, and Mac sales were all below expectations. You can argue that this is reflective of the strong dollar headwind more than business trajectory. Revenue was up just 2%, but without adjusting for currency, this figure would have been a much healthier 8%. Still, with iPhone sales virtually flat year-over-year and most other segments such as iPad down big, this certainly wasn’t an inspiring quarter.

2016 Looks To Be A Slow Year: This quarterly report was doubly disappointing, because AAPL guided down pretty hard for next quarter as well. Next quarter is now guided to $50 to $53 billion in revenues. This is way below the previous $55.6 billion analyst consensus, and would be a roughly 11% drop from last year’s $58 billion actual figure for that quarter.

Wall Street hates shrinking companies. Even if you’re a fantastic business with huge margins, you can keep trading at a 10x PE for quite awhile if your top-line revenues are shrinking. With the dollar continuing to strengthen, and further devaluations of the Chinese Yuan expected, it may get worse before it gets better.

Project Titan Going Poorly: Apple’s much discussed electric car project appears to be hitting some potholes. AppleInsider reported that the company has frozen hiring for the project. AAPL had taken to the area with great enthusiasm, reportedly hiring more than 1,000 employees for Project Titan thus far.

This comes on top of recent news that Steve Zadesky had left Apple for personal reasons. Zadesky had been a long-time Ford (F) employee that Apple brought in to spearhead Project Titan. Engineering for the vehicle was to be done by 2019. Now it is uncertain what, if anything, will become of the venture.

Verdict on Apple Shares

Most of the post-earnings fallout, as far as the AAPL stock price is concerned, has happened already. If shares fall below $95 anytime soon, this might be a good time to initiate a position if you don’t already own Apple.

However, there are clear headwinds here. Apple is facing a difficult competitive environment, and several of its products are slipping. But the company has so much cash and is trading at such a low valuation that in the end, there’s a decent chance they’ll figure out how to produce shareholder value. I personally don’t own any shares, I dislike optically cheap companies whose fortunes are heavily tied to one product. But if you like Apple, any big selloff should make for a good entry point.

At the time of this writing, Ian Bezek held no position in any securities mentioned. You can follow him on Twitter at @irbezek.

Ian Bezek has written more than 1,000 articles for InvestorPlace.com and Seeking Alpha. He also worked as a Junior Analyst for Kerrisdale Capital, a $300 million New York City-based hedge fund. You can reach him on Twitter at @irbezek.


Article printed from InvestorPlace Media, https://investorplace.com/2016/02/buy-sell-apple-aapl-stock-pros-cons/.

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