An analyst with a $270 target and "sell short" rating may have a credibility problem
Zabitsky on CNBC
I applaud my CNNMoney colleague Hibah Yousuf for trying to pin down which hedge funds have been dumping their Apple (AAPL) shares lately, but I'm not sure I would have used ACI Research's Edward Zabitsky as a source for a piece entitled Not everyone loves Apple's stock.
To call Zabitsky's most recent note -- published Jan. 25 -- an outlier is an understatement. He set a $270 price target on a day when the stock was trading over $450 and advised investors to "sell short" just before a run that would take Apple to over $526.
The following Monday CNBC did something it rarely does. It invited Zabitsky to appear on its Halftime Report and grilled him mercilessly -- and quite skeptically -- for six long minutes. See here.
Long before then, however, Zabitsky was famous among Apple investors for his "sky is falling" Apple soundbites. AAPLInvestors Terry Gregory has been collecting them on his iPhone Death Watch for years:
To which we can add, from Zabitsky's Jan. 25 note:
We asked Zabitsky if he was serious about his $270 price target and his "sell short" rating, and he was kind enough to reply:
"To be clear," he wrote, "shorting is for professionals. Individuals should just be asking themselves if Apple is as invincible as they think.
"My targets are based upon my expectations for the business over a two year time frame. They are not based upon the current share price. In 2007, my targets were all well below the share prices, in late February 2009, my targets were all far above the share prices.
"The difference between me and my competitors is that I had a successful buy-side career. I have also had 20 years of experience talking to high tech people who are far smarter than I am. Futhermore, I do not have a trading desk breathing down my neck."
A Google search turns up 114 million hits, but that couldn't be right. Could it?
Image: Techmeme
The Wall Street Journal was getting a lot of play Tuesday morning with a report out of Taiwan that Apple (AAPL), to "broaden its product pipeline" and respond to "intensifying competition," was testing a new smaller tablet with a screen size of about 8 inches.
Color us skeptical.
First of all, we don't sense MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Feb 14, 2012 12:00 PM ET
Down 6% in 2011, that's where, according to the NPD Group
Click to enlarge.
If it weren't for tablets and mobile phones, 2011 would have been a miserable year for the U.S. consumer electronics industry.
Total U.S. retail sales for the year were $144 billion, down 1% from 2010, according to a report issued Monday by the NPD Group.
That might not sound too bad. But sales of PCs, TVs and video game hardware MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Feb 13, 2012 10:13 AM ET
Regained the spot that it took from Nokia in June and gave up to Samsung in September
Click to enlarge. Source: IDC
It will come as no surprise to Apple (AAPL) watchers that the company sold 37 million iPhones last quarter. Tim Cook reported that number two weeks ago.
Getting comparable figures from Apple's competitors is a different matter, and that's where companies like IDC come in. Samsung, for example, used to report MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Feb 7, 2012 4:53 AM ET
Squeezed by Apple and Samsung, it had a bad quarter and expects the next to be worse
There was a time when HTC and Android were practically synonymous.
The Taiwanese manufacturer built the first commercially available Android phone -- the HTC Dream -- in 2008, and two years later collaborated with Google (GOOG) to build the Nexus One, the flagship of the Android line. Last November, it edged past Samsung, Apple (AAPL) MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Feb 6, 2012 6:42 AM ET
Between them, Samsung and Apple are sucking up 91% of the winnings
Click to enlarge. Source: Asymco.com
Asymco's Horace Dediu on Friday updated his quarterly review of mobile phone profits, and the news for everybody but Apple (AAPL) just gets worse.
As the iPhone's share of the market in terms of units shipped has grown from 3% in second quarter of 2010 to 8.7% last quarter, Apple's share of the profits has swelled from MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Feb 3, 2012 8:20 AM ET
Apple's mobile phone shipments nearly doubled in 2011, overtaking LG and ZTE
Click to enlarge. Source: IDC
On the strength of sales of the iPhone 4S last quarter, Apple (AAPL) jumped two spots in IDC's ranking of the world's five largest manufacturers of mobile phones -- smart or otherwise.
In a press release issued Wednesday, IDC reported that weakness in the demand for so-called feature phones dragged down market growth in the MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Feb 2, 2012 8:18 AM ET
A pair of reports agree -- more or less -- on the current state of the battle
Click to enlarge. Source: IHS iSupply.
Two reports published Thursday -- one by IHS iSuppli, the other by Strategy Analytics -- describe the global race for smartphone supremacy as high-stakes see-saw.
Basically what happened is that Apple (AAPL) took the lead from Nokia (NOK) in June, lost it to Samsung in September and won it back in December.
"Apple's MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jan 27, 2012 2:26 AM ET
Interest in the Galaxy Nexus is high, but the iPhone still leads in customer satisfaction
Click to enlarge.
The next few months should be very good for Apple (AAPL) and Samsung -- and not so good for HTC and Research in Motion (RIMM) -- according to the results of a survey of 4,000 North American early adopters posted Monday by ChangeWave Research.
More than half of the respondents who plan to buy MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jan 9, 2012 7:07 AM ET
Slipping in a market Tim Cook identified as "an area of enormous opportunity"
Thousands lined up for the iPhone 4S in Hong Kong. Image: Andrew Leyden.
There's a nugget of unanchored news in a report Reuters filed Friday.
"In the third quarter," wrote Lee Chyen Yee, "Huawei overtook Apple as the No.3 smartphone vendor in China."
Without identifying its source or specifying market shares, Reuters reported that Apple (AAPL) now trails Nokia (NOK), Samsung MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Dec 17, 2011 4:37 PM ETEvery morning, discover the companies, deals and trends in tech that are moving markets and making headlines. SUBSCRIBE
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