Apple stock has been on an absolute tear. Now JPMorgan is removing it from the firm’s Analyst Focus List over concerns about consumer spending.
Shares of Apple (ticker: AAPL) climbed for 11 days from March 14 until this past Wednesday—its longest winning streak since 2003. There was no fundamental reason for the fantastic rally. But one can possibly credit the recent news around Apple’s acquisition of British fintech start-up Credit Kudos or the declining trade-in prices for used iPhones or even the Oscar win for “CODA,”released on Apple TV, if we’re feeling desperate.
But Apple, the world’s largest, most dominant corporation, is a consumer company, at its heart. So when spending decelerates it’s bound to get analysts talking.
J.P. Morgan’s Samik Chatterjee, said the moderation in consumer spending will do two things: It will “temperate expectations for upside from the recent iPhone SE launch” and also limit the upside in the Services segment as gaming engagement in China moderates materially both from the pullback in consumer spending and tough comparisons to previous quarters. These reasons led him to remove the stock from the firms’ Analyst Focus List, a designation reserved for what the firm deems attractive purchases.
There is cause for concern about consumer spending. Higher gas prices, for one, leave less money to spend on other things, particularly for owners of gas-guzzling vehicles: It now costs an extra $32 compared with last year to fill up a top-selling Ford F-150, analysts at RBC Capital Markets found out.
That’s starting to show up in the data. Last month, personal-consumption expenditures, or PCE, increased just by 0.2% month-over-month to $34.9 billion last month, below forecasts for a 0.7% increase. Adjusted for inflation, spending fell by 0.4%.
Apple, though, is nothing if not resilient, and Its stock hasn’t reacted all that much to JPMorgan’s move. Shares are down 0.5% to $173.49 in premarket trading Friday and have gained 41% in the past year.