Apple Inc. Soars as Analysts Predict Continued Growth

Steve Jobs’ Legacy Still Influences Apple

Steve Jobs, the visionary co-founder of Apple Inc. AAPL, is renowned for transforming various product categories including smartphones and tablets. His foresight for the MacBook became evident as early as 1983, and today, Apple stock has hit new record highs.

Analysts’ Optimism: The outlook from analysts at JPMorgan is positive. They have given Apple stock an overweight rating, setting a price target of $265, which indicates a potential increase of more than 2%.

According to JPMorgan analyst Samik Chatterjee, “We see upside in several aspects of the business as well as financials that remain underappreciated by investors, namely the transformation of the company to Services, growth in the installed base, technology leadership, and optionality around capital deployment,” as quoted by CNBC.

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Over the last month, Apple stock has surged by over 10%, and since the beginning of the year, it has risen more than 39%, based on data from Benzinga Pro.

Jobs’ Vision for the Future: In 1983, Jobs articulated his dream for a portable computer, stating, “Apple strategy is really simple. What we want to do is we want to put an incredibly great computer in a book that you can carry around with you that you can learn how to use in 20 minutes.”

Although he acknowledged the technical challenges, he presented three options: to do nothing, create a subpar product, or continue to develop the ideal computer for the future. “The third option was to design the computer that we want to put into the book eventually, even though we can’t put into the book now. And right now it fits into a bread box and it’s $10,000 and it’s called Lisa.”

While the Lisa represented Jobs’ aspiration, the MacBook ultimately fulfilled his vision. He forecasted, “The next thing we will do is we will find a way to put it in a shoebox and sell it for like $2,500, and finally we’ll find a way to get it in a book and sell it for under $1,000.”

Consensus Among Analysts: The overall sentiment among analysts remains positive, with Benzinga Pro reporting that 30 analysts maintain a consensus buy rating for AAPL. The collective average price target is set at $286, suggesting an implied upside of about 10.51% for the stock, according to data from Wedbush, Morgan Stanley, and Needham.

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Photo courtesy: Wikimedia