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Morgan Stanley maintains AAPL as a buy, giving four reasons for expecting stock to climb

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Following Bank of America Merrill Lynch yesterday giving six reasons for downgrading AAPL stock, Morgan Stanley has responded today with four reasons it continues to rate the stock a Buy, reports Business Insider.

In a note to clients on Thursday, Morgan Stanley’s Katy Huberty maintained an “Overweight” rating and $155 price target on the stock, arguing that the company will not see a similar stock meltdown to what was experienced after a huge run-up in 2012. 

While acknowledging that supply may be catching up with demand, leading to supply chain reports of seemingly weaker sales, Huberty says there are four reasons the stock is likely to climb.

  1. Gross margins are improving, not deteriorating, as the company heads into the next iPhone cycle.
  2. There’s low institutional ownership of the stock. 
  3. Apple has a more competitive product line-up and a “stickier” ecosystem against Android.
  4. There’s a more robust product and services roadmap.

Addressing concerns about the impact the weak Chinese economy may have on Apple, Huberty says that smartphones costing more than $300 each have been increasing their market share, meaning that Apple is well placed to continue to grow its business in the country.

Wall Street expecting Apple to report year-on-year revenue fall of 0.2 percent

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The consensus view of 40 analysts polled by Fortune is that Apple’s year-on-year revenue for its fiscal Q2 (Q1 of the calendar year) has fallen by 0.2 percent to $43.6B. This follows earlier predictions that iPhone sales will have grown two percent, and iPad sales will have dropped by 0.7 percent.

Most of our analysts (31 out to 40) are playing it safe, offering estimates within the range of Apple’s guidance — between $42 billion and $44 billion.

Seven think Apple will beat its revenue guidance — by half to three-quarters of a billion dollars, according to Merrill Lynch’s Scott Craig and the Braeburn Group’s Patrick Smellie, respectively. Two analysts — Credit Suisse’s Kulbinder Garcha and the Braeburn Group’s Sunil Shah — think Apple’s revenue may actually have fallen year over year …


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Analyst: T-Mobile USA might announce arrival of iPhone next week

With T-Mobile Chief Operating Officer Jim Alling hinting that the iPhone was too expensive at a recent conference in Barcelona, it seemed like the carrier planned  to continue with its bring-your-own iPhone strategy for its ever-expanding iPhone-compatible 4G network. However, a note from Merrill Lynch analyst Scott Craig today claimed the carrier could announce a deal to carry the iPhone as early as next week. Fortune has the story:

Now Merrill Lynch’s Scott Craig is out with a note reporting that “speculation is heightening” that Deutsche Telecom (DT) will announce a deal to bring the iPhone to its U.S. subsidiary at next week’s analysts day (12/6-7).

Merrill Lynch’s Craig points out that cutting a deal with the fourth largest U.S. carrier would give Apple access to 98% of the U.S. post-paid market and 75% of the country’s total mobile subscribers.

“While this would be incrementally positive,” he writes, “any financial impact would be limited.” He estimates that a T-Mobile deal would add about 4 million iPhones to his current estimate of 179 million sold in calendar 2013, boosting Apple’s top line (revenue) by 1% and its bottom line (earnings per share) by 2%.