Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) shares have been on the rise lately resulting in increased expectations from investors and analysts.
Barclay’s analyst Ben A. Reitzes has increased his price target for Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) from $465 to $525 on Monday. He gave three important reasons behind doing so. Reitzes hold the view that Apple will again retain the investors and consumers confidence, and will unveil its roadmap for new products in annual Worldwide Developers Conference, starting on June 10.
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) will make the announcement about its new software, services and Macs at WWDC. After WWDC, there will be one more event held in September, where the talks are going around that the company will roll over its new iPhone along with the updated iPad’s.
“With these events, combined with improving builds in the supply chain, we believe investors will become less concerned with the September product transition quarter and start to anticipate a large holiday quarter,” he said.
Reitzes is also expecting that gross margin of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) will improve. There was doubt amongst the analysts that the new low cost iPhone will bring down the margins of the company, but Reitzes is denying any such possibility as a “worst case” scenario in 2014.
The shares of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) were on top in the gainer’s list at S&P 500 after the upgrade by the Barclays analyst. Apple surged 2.4 percent to $460.71 and topped both NASDAQ composite index and the benchmark S&P 500.
Reitzes is, however, not fully supportive of Apple’s recently announced capital reinvestment program under which company has decided to spend $100 billion through 2015 on share buyback and increased quarterly dividends.
Other Good News for Apple
Another positive for the iPhone maker is Alisher Usmanov, a Russian billionaire who bought $100 million worth of Apple shares saying that the company is a “very promising investment” even if it is not doing that well as of now. Usmanov has a firm believe in the coming years of Apple. The company has faced major loss in terms of Steve Jobs and then lost $100 billion of its market value in less than a year. He said that the time to buy Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) shares is perfect as the capitalization from here will increase.
With the surge in share prices, Apple now again leads in terms of market capitalization after it dropped below to that Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM). Last month, Exxon over took Apple to become the most valuable company after the iPhone maker’s market cap dipped below $400 billion.
The dream run of shares have also booked Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) a seat in the elite club of Fortune 10 this year. The iPad maker bagged the sixth spot from its previous rank of 17.
