Apple shares rise for the fifth straight trading session after Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty slammed in with an increasingly Bullish view of the company’s prospects.
Huberty increased its price target on Apple’s stock AAPL,
to $ 520 from $ 431 in a Monday note to clients. The analyst’s new target is now higher than all those mentioned on FactSet. The stock is up about 2% in morning trading.
The price target increase comes amid a strong push for Apple shares, even though the iPhone maker has seen increased pushback from developers over the course of its App Store practices. Epic Games, the developer of ‘Fortnite’, claims that Apple has filed a lawsuit against what appears to be a ‘monopolistic’ policy on the platform, saying that developers prefer to collect payments using their own mechanisms within apps downloaded from Apple’s App Store .
Apple collects up to 30% of purchases using the payment technology in the App Store.
Read more: Manufacturer ‘Fortnite’ accuses Apple, Google of illegal monopolistic practices in tech battle generously
Huberty wrote that she expects “no full-term changes to the App Store model”, seeing that legal battles like this will last for years and “Fortnite’s” purchasing revenue for purchasing is not important to Apple’s overall topline.
She also said that the risk to Apple’s business from the Trump Administrations’ interest in transactions between TCEHY of Tencent Holdings Ltd.,
700,
WeChat and people in the US are “overblown.”
Although Huberty said that investors seem worried that the ban could extend beyond use in the US and Apple could also restrict dealing with WeChat in China, which may require Chinese iPhone users to switch to other devices, she doubts that Apple will be banned from providing WeChat access to Chinese citizens in China.
Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives took a similar view in a Monday report. “While the WeChat ban in the US (App Store) is important to Apple, we believe Chinese consumers should see no restriction with this app, which is important especially in the long-awaited 5G iPhone 12 superbike of the company, ready to launch in early October, “he wrote.
Ives rates Apple’s stock better than a $ 515 target price. He said he had seen “the last few months” a lot of strength from the China region, a dynamic we expect to continue for the next six to nine months. “
Trump administration officials have reportedly sought to trust tech companies that they can still support WeChat’s China business, according to Bloomberg.
Apple shares have risen 58% over the past three months than the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA,
has risen 15%.
.
