What happened
Buoyed by good U.S. jobs data on Friday, investors were in a bullish mood and willing to consider buying beaten-down tech stocks. This helped push the price of Apple (AAPL 0.89%) shares up by 4%, as did a pair of fresh analyst takes on the company.
So what
Before market open Friday morning, Morgan Stanley prognosticator Erik Woodring reiterated his overweight (buy) recommendation on Apple. Actually, buy might be understating the case, as Woodring is maintaining his $175 per share price target, implying potential upside of 35%.
The analyst feels that the $115 to $120 price the stock has traded at recently is a "near-term floor," and is worth considerably more. He added that his research does not indicate weakening demand for Apple products, as many fear given the macroeconomic concerns that have clouded the market lately.
Also on Friday, Woodring's peer Ming-Chi Kuo of TF International weighed in on Apple. Kuo revealed in a post on Medium, citing unnamed supply chain sources, that the tech giant has canceled plans to produce and sell the 2024 iPhone SE 4 model. He said that this was due to "concerns that the performance of the in-house baseband chip may not be up to par" with the Qualcomm chips used in the standard iPhone models.
Now what
The SE line is Apple's budget iPhone model, so investors might be cheered that the company's famously high margins won't sag a bit from those lower-priced products. Meanwhile, many bargain hunters in the market are increasingly considering roughed-up tech stocks like this one to be excellent deals; investors will see if that momentum holds up in the coming days.
