Apple’s stock surged nearly almost 5% on Friday, hitting a nine-month high, after the iPhone maker’s quarterly results cheered investors worried about a potential recession.
The rally in Apple’s shares buoyed optimism across Wall Street, helping lift the S&P 500 and Nasdaq over 1.5% after CEO Tim Cook’s results late on Thursday underscored the resilience of corporate earnings in a quarterly reporting season that so far has been less bad than expected.
“Apple soothed the market because of its consistency of execution. Tim Cook has a steady hand on the helm,” said Jake Dollarhide, CEO of Longbow Asset Management in Tulsa, Oklahoma. “Investors in uncertain times want certainty, and Apple, as well as Microsoft, are as close as you can get to certainty.”
The world’s most valuable company reported lower revenue and profits for the quarter ending 1 April, but still beat analysts’ expectations. With Apple’s results helped by emerging markets like India, executives said gross profit margins for the current quarter would be better than forecast.
Apple’s stock market value climbed by over US$100-billion to about $2.7-trillion, extending its lead over Microsoft, the world’s second most valuable company, at $2.3-trillion.
Apple’s stock has recovered almost 40% from its closing low in January, and it is now down just 4.7% below its record high close in January 2022. By comparison, the S&P 500 remains down 15% from its record high close, also in January 2022.
Read: Apple stakes its future growth on emerging markets
At least 13 analysts raised their price targets for Apple’s stock following its report, with the median target climbing to $180 from $170 before the report, according to Refinitiv data. — Noel Randewich, (c) 2023 Reuters
