AAPL

Despite the Wall Street spiked at a record high of 6,100.50 points in terms of the S&P 500 broad market barometer on Trump's second-term optimism, investors have been slow to act on Apple so far. Other tech giants are updating their all-time price peaks like Amazon did at $235, or adding more than 4% in a single trading session like Microsoft and NVIDIA performed on Wednesday, January 22, and even double-digit percentages in some cases like Oracle, thanks to unveiling a large $500 billion investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure by new White House dwellers to help the U. S. stay ahead of China in the global race. Meanwhile, nothing really positive happened around Apple, with some reputable analyst firms even downgrading shares of the iPhone maker.

This week, analysts at Jefferies Group, headquartered in New York since 1962 and having almost 4,000 employees, cut their rating for Apple stock to Underperform from Hold, citing their estimates of potentially missing both Q4 earnings targets and forward guidance for the upcoming year of 2025. Jefferies Group's forecast is a potential lack in Apple's revenue line within 5% and only "low single-digit revenue growth" for the current quarter, feeling supposedly weaker sales and outlook for iPhone 17 and 18 because of “slower AI uptake and commercialization” of built AI features. China's government subsidies, they say, may be limited and even exclude most iPhone models amid growing competition from local gadgets, while some "third-party survey" allegedly indicated that consumers in the U.S. "did not find smartphone AI particularly useful". Besides that, expected delays in Apple's advanced packaging roadmap could influence enhancing AI capabilities. The investigation house changed its prediction path for iPhone shipments from a 1% growth before to a 2% decline for Q1 2025 following a 4% YoY decline previously reported by the International Data Corporation (IDC).

As a response, the share price of Apple slid by more than 2% during the first working day of the week to touch its nearest $220 technical support area. Apple stock's price discount reached about 15% at this point, compared to its fresh high above $260 on the next day after Christmas. The share price of Apple later rebounded off the week's low by the same value of about 2%. However, Jefferies' updated price target on the tech giant's shares was reduced to $200.75, which implies a possible 10% of downside moves from the current levels a bit below $225 per share. In the same week, Loop Capital, a provider of integrated trading solutions from Chicago, joined to reassess Apple stock by shifting its estimates from formerly Buy to currently Hold, expecting "material iPhone demand reduction... from the March quarter. However, the group is projecting its strength "materially amplifying" back in the June and September quarters.

Based on these warnings and the latest market moves, we also feel that reasonable signs for purchasing Apple stock at optimum price could be postponed, with precise timing for profitable Buy transactions remaining indefinite. Yet, price levels around $200 per share could serve as a landmark, technically because of a deep low at $196 in early August 2024 which played a role of a catapult for the further and quick take-off to the sky up to $160 in December.