We recently published a list of Jim Cramer is Talking About These 10 Stocks. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) stands against other stocks Jim Cramer is talking about.
Jim Cramer in a latest program on CNBC said that the market is narrowing again as he sees gains getting concentrated in big tech stocks again amid bond movements.
“If the bond market doesn’t start behaving and calming down, and long-term interest rates don’t stop going up, we are gonna start losing the groups that led us higher for months and go back to our bad old ways with just a couple of magnificent ones.”
Jim Cramer said that this trend was more or less expected as market assumptions following the 50bps rate cut by the Federal Reserve proved to be wrong down the road.
But then that darn double cut—we saw something that hasn’t happened since 1995. We saw loan rates go higher, not lower. It was a total buzzkill, and we’re beginning to feel it with earnings.
Cramer then talked about a latest earnings report from a notable homebuilder that showed soft results, indicating a weaker consumer. Cramer then summarized his thesis again on why he sees the overall market trajectory in what he called a “suboptimal situation.”
“If interest rates don’t stop rising quickly—they can go up slowly, but this quick rise means we’ll go right back to the same old story. Only a few big tech stocks were winning, while many more were losing. In other words, we’re on the verge of what I can describe as an extremely suboptimal situation if the bond market doesn’t settle down.”
READ ALSO: 7 Best Stocks to Buy For Long-Term and 8 Cheap Jim Cramer Stocks to Invest In
Our Methodology
For this article we watched several latest programs of Jim Cramer on CNBC and picked 10 stocks he’s talking about. With each company we have mentioned its hedge fund sentiment. Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points (see more details here).
Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 184
A frustrated Jim Cramer during a program on CNBC tore apart analyst notes discussing Apple Inc (NASDQ:AAPL)’s iPhone 16 performance based on sales trackers, saying we have to end this “game” of trackers.
“Jeffries, Loop Capital, and JPMorgan, they’re all playing this game—how good are Apple Inc (NASDQ:AAPL) sales, using trackers?”
Cramer was referring to different analyst notes trying to gauge how well iPhone 16 is doing based on different indicators and trackers for estimates.
“We have to end the tracker game. Let this be the official…No more tracks,” Cramer added.
Almost every bullish case on Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) was built around this assumption: millions of people would rush to upgrade their iPhone because of AI features. But the latest numbers for iPhone 16 do not show much enthusiasm for the new device.
Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) has been seeing a long-term decline in mobile carrier upgrade rates, especially postpaid, for several years. This suggests that people are holding onto their devices longer, likely due to economic factors, satisfaction with current technology, or a lack of exciting new features in recent models. This trend isn’t great for Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL). Can Apple Intelligence break this trend? We’ll find out soon.
However, the assumption that we will see a huge upgrade cycle of iPhone just because of AI is big and comes with a lot of risks. Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) trades at a forward PE multiple of around 35x, well above its 5-year average of nearly 27x. Its expected EPS forward long-term growth rate of 10.39% does not justify its valuation, especially with the iPhone upgrade cycle assumption. Adjusting for this growth results in a forward PEG ratio of 3.33, significantly higher than its 5-year average of 2.38.
Wedgewood Partners stated the following regarding Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) in its Q3 2024 investor letter:
“Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) also contributed to performance as investors continued to favorably discount the recent unveiling of its AI strategy. As we have noted in the past, the Company has been at the forefront of proprietary semiconductor computer processor development for well over a decade. Given the compute-intensive nature of AI applications, Apple is well situated to develop a suite of compelling, consumer-friendly AI services that are also cost-effective. Apple’s AI value proposition should compel consumers to continue growing their engagement in the Apple ecosystem over the next several years.”
Overall, AAPL ranks 1st on our list of stocks Jim Cramer is talking about. While we acknowledge the potential of AAPL, our conviction lies in the belief that under the radar AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than AAPL but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
READ NEXT: 8 Best Wide Moat Stocks to Buy Now and 30 Most Important AI Stocks According to BlackRock.
Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.