Apple Stock Forecast: As Critics Call for Cook to Step Down, How Bad Are Things Really for AAPL?

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3 days ago

With a year-to-date loss of 15%, Apple (AAPL) is the second-worst performing 'Magnificent 7' stock this year. Only Tesla (TSLA) has fared worse than Apple among the coveted group, thanks to news flow around CEO Elon Musk's politics, which often tend to overshadow the more pressing issues that the company needs to address.
As for Apple, the YTD underperformance comes amid the growing perception that it slacked big time on artificial intelligence (AI). As Wedbush analyst Dan Ives aptly said, 'Apple is at a highway rest stop on a bench watching this Fourth Industrial Revolution race go by at 100 miles an hour.'
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Some other headlines are even more unforgiving, with one even claiming Apple stock is for 'losers.' That said, the iPhone maker remains the largest holding for Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B), and the 'Oracle of Omaha' does not appear to be in a mood to sell more shares after trimming the holdings to a round figure of 300 million shares.
In this article, we'll gauge how bad things are for Apple, as a section of the market questions whether CEO Tim Cook is the best person to lead the Cupertino-based company amid its recent underperformance.
Apple Has Arguably Slacked on AI
While other Big Tech companies have ramped up their AI capex, filling up Nvidia's (NVDA) coffers in that process, Apple hasn't seen a commensurate rise in its AI spending. The company's 'Apple Intelligence' features have been quite gradual, and while Apple maintains that iPhone sales have been better in regions where these features are available, they haven't moved the needle much, or at least that's what the sales numbers tell us.
The argument about Apple slacking on its AI initiatives gained momentum following last month's WWDC, where the new features were not exactly groundbreaking and, in many cases, Apple appeared to be playing catch-up with its competitors. For example, despite Siri having the first-mover advantage in the digital assistant space, it is still well behind AI assistants offered by the likes of OpenAI.
There have been rumours about Apple considering acquiring AI startup Perplexity. However, I believe the possibility of that acquisition looks dim as, firstly, Apple has historically not made large acquisitions. Plus, it has prioritized privacy in its AI development, unlike Perplexity.
Critics Call for Cook to Be Replaced
Gene Munster of Deepwater Asset Management, who termed OpenAI's acquisition of former Apple executive Jony Ive's startup io Products as a 'wake-up call' for Apple, termed Cook as a 'peacetime CEO.' Others have been less flattering and called for the company to look for a new CEO.
To be sure, Cook's strength has been in logistics and supply chain, which was on full display amid the recent tariff chaos, in which Apple was almost seamlessly able to move the bulk of iPhone production to India to evade the stiffer tariffs on China.
However, since the iPhone, Apple hasn't come up with any other product that has the opportunity to be the 'next big thing.' If anything, there have been more hits than misses over the last decade. For instance, last year, it reportedly halted its electric vehicle project codenamed 'Project Titan' after burning billions of dollars over a decade. Apple TV remains another vanity project and is reportedly in the red. Apple's Vision Pro virtual reality (VR) headset has also failed to get much traction.
While Apple still boasts an installed base of over 2.35 billion devices globally and has built a strong ecosystem with a loyal user base, the race for the next computing platform looks wide open, with Meta Platforms (META) and OpenAI looking to challenge the status quo.
I wouldn't rule out Apple from the AI war, but the company faces some of its biggest challenges in recent years. The same would hold for Google (GOOG), which is facing perhaps the first real competition in its search dominance that I can remember.
Apple Stock Forecast
Wall Street has also been a lot less bullish on Apple than it has been in recent history. While Jefferies upgraded the stock from 'Underperform' to 'Hold' earlier this month, Apple has a consensus rating of 'Moderate Buy,' which is better than only Tesla among its 'Magnificent 7 peers. Apple's mean target price of $230.92 is just about 9.4% higher than current prices.
Analysts' pessimism is not hard to comprehend as, apart from concerns over its AI strategy, Apple faces some other pressing headwinds, particularly in the high-margin Services business, after District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled that Apple needs to loosen its stringent App Store rules and stop collecting fees on purchases made outside apps.
The tariff heat might rise again as the Aug. 1 tariff deadline approaches. President Donald Trump has been quite vocal about his desire for Apple to shift its production stateside, something analysts believe is next to impossible given the cost and scale of operations.
All said, while Apple's forecast does not really look rosy, I believe some headlines are much gloomier than reality. These are still early days in AI, and given Apple's current user base, it has a head start over other AI companies that need a hardware platform to reach users.
However, given the current valuations – Apple trades at a forward price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple of nearly 30x – I don't find the short-term risk-reward compelling enough to add to my existing position.
On the date of publication, Mohit Oberoi had a position in: AAPL, NVDA, META, TSLA, GOOG. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. This article was originally published on Barchart.com