It's a Merry Christmas for AAPL shareholders, stock at all-time high
On December 14th, I posted an opinion piece sharing my thoughts that AAPL stock would hit $300 a share in a year (for which I received quite a lot of critical feedback). Two days later, on December 16th, Morgan Stanley's Katy Huberty issued a report stating she believes there is a 25% chance that AAPL will be between $325 and $435 in the next twelve months (she also believes it could fall to $150 if Google's Android takes off and Apple drops the ball).
Huberty based her bullish outlook on the scenario that iPhone sales are on pace to capture 10-15% of the handset market by 2012 – and this doesn't even include soaring Mac sales or the impending iSlate.
Well, the stock isn't at $325 yet, but on December 24th, AAPL did close at an all-time high of $209.04. Not bad considering on December 8th, the stock was down almost 8% on its previous high of $208 on November 16th. Christmas Eve's 3.4% one-day gain was driven primarily by the news that Apple has booked the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts for an event on January 26th.
So, where does the stock go from here? Traditionally, there is an early-January slide for AAPL that coincides with the "buy on rumor, sell on news" MacWorld Expo event, but since MacWorld is going to be Apple-free from now on, who knows if that will happen this year. And even if the early January slide hits AAPL, the company hassomuchgoingforit besides the rumored iSlate, I'm beginning to think my $300 target is rather conservative. But that's the future. For now the $209 share price is a nice Christmas gift.
Disclaimer: This author owns shares in AAPL. Opinions in this post are those of the author only and should not be considered as investment advice.
