Uh Oh, Apple (AAPL) May Be In Trouble

I think every American was heartened at the speed that the U.S., and the free world, levied sanctions on the totalitarian regime of Russia.

A few weeks ago, many said we couldn’t turn off Russia’s access to Swift, that would be the equivalent of an economic nuclear strike.

Then BAM! The EU said, “we’re doing this NOW, please join us.”

Many said we couldn’t stop buying Russian oil, because that would hurt the world, including the EU, way too much.

Then BAM! We stopped buying Russian oil.

Just a few weeks ago, who would have thought so many company would join the battle? Google. Facebook. Twitter. Visa. MasterCard. American Express. PayPal. Nike. Adidas. McDonald’s. Starbucks. Coke. Pepsi. Hundreds and hundreds more… all flipping the middle finger to Putin. In fact, if you haven’t stop doing business with Russia yet, something is wrong with you.

China’s reaction to all of this? Silence in the beginning. A lot of folks say that’s just their way, “to observe.”

I think it’s something different. That they originally thought what Putin thought: “No way the U.S. and the EU can ever get their stuff together to act in concert… and certainly whatever they do won’t have teeth.”

But both Putin and China were oh so wrong. The outpouring of support for Ukraine? STUNNING. BLINDING.

UNANIMOUS.

So China went from quiet cockiness to silent terror… now knowing that the free world has a NEW weapon against oppressors: We’ll just turn you off.

It couldn’t have happened 20 years ago… maybe not even 10… but now the world is really so interconnected, that it really is possible to, say, strangle Russia-the-dictatorship-that-oppresses-people to economic death.

With all this momentum, China realized it had to do something.

Of course they didn’t do what would have been truly helpful to peace… and that is whisper in Putin’s ear, “wtf, it didn’t work, stop acting like a madman!”

Instead it’s s-l-o-w-l-y been rolling out support for Russia over the last week or so. Essentially “reminding” everyone we need to de-escalate because it will further mess up global supply chains and such.

Boy, did Xi miscalculate on that one, too.

Talk turned today of “secondary sanctions” against China. If they’re still doing business with a murderous dictator that wants to take away others’ freedom, then maybe we’ll just turn China off, too.

My reaction?

YES! LET’S DO THAT! NOW!!

Then I got to thinking, why wouldn’t we do this? China is mostly a one-way relationship: They economically abuse us. And every time we ask them to play fair, they cry about it.

Then I got to thinking some more: Which American companies would get hurt by this?

And then it hit me: Apple. The world’s most valuable company. The company that derives 19% of its revenue from China. The company that makes almost HALF of their iPhones in China.

This would be an economic disaster of epic proportions for Apple stock.

And since virtually EVERY person on the planet either has money directly in Apple… or their mutual fund does… or their 401K does… or their bank does where they save their money… and so on…

… hurting Apple stock is akin to hurting every person on the planet.

I kid you not.

Remember the dotcom crash? It started (imho) because Microsoft and Intel, the two companies that used to financially represent everyone in the world, missed earnings numbers and sent shock waves through the financial markets. A history-making crash.

So it’s happened before.

We survived… but remember it was awfully rough for a while… and Microsoft stock price, literally, flat-lined for about the next decade.

If sanctions move to China — whether it’s for their support of Russia — or they start moving on Taiwan — I know every American will feel the way I do: YES! LET’S DO THAT! F*ck China. You sell to your oppressed people… and we’ll sell to the FREE world.

If that happens, I’m not sure Apple wouldn’t get caught in an awfully bloody crossfire.

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How Does A Contrarian Play Apple (AAPL) Into Earnings?

I’m a contrarian. It’s my observation that when everyone thinks one thing, the real, outsized opportunity is the other.

But what happens when everyone thinks one thing… but the market is thinking quite another?

Take AAPL. From a low of around $212 a month ago, it’s powered its way to almost $290. More impressively, just about 12% from its all-time high.

Heck, if you went way out on a limb, you could probably say that’s even within a normal trading range.  “Has the whole world stopped?  We didn’t notice!”

But all through this romp upwards, most Apple analysts have been decidedly negative.

Out of about 30 analyst moves in the last two months, a whopping 80% of them were downgrades.

To put this in context, Intel analysts were split 50/50 between upgrades and downgrades going into their earnings last Thursday.  So, relatively speaking, 80/20 to the negative side is a big spread.

 

 

As important, some of the AAPL downgrades were double downgrades… that is, a second price-target cut within just a few weeks.

So what’s the contrarian play here? Go against analysts and buy?  Or go against the market and short?

I think you go against the market. That’s the bigger “everyone” in this case.

Going against the market also seems, well, more rational to me.  I love Apple but I think the current market enthusiasm seems excessive given our uncertain environment:  Uncertain when lock-downs will end… uncertain that people will want to congregate at Apple Stores when they do… uncertain when we’ll see a vaccine… uncertain that a 2nd, or even 3rd, inflection wave may hit… and so on.

This uncertain environment is awesome for a select number of businesses… say Amazon and Netflix… but could be less kind to a (mostly) consumer hardware company like Apple.  Not that I’m not saying people can live without their iPhones — they can’t — but I am saying they may be less quick to buy $1,000 upgrades.

No doubt, what makes going against Apple scary is it’s one of a handful of companies that has the business levers to manage its way around a crisis like this.  And they are notorious for pulling rabbits-out-of-hats.

Still, a V-shaped recovery?  THE ENTIRE WORLD HAS SHUT DOWN.  Does a (mostly) consumer hardware company merit trading anywhere near an all-time high?  Does the market merit trading anywhere near an all-time high?  Somewhere in this equation there has to be some p-a-i-n.

I’m not the first person to say there’s a good chance we’ll see another downdraft.  So if Apple does surprise to the upside, AAPL could still take a tumble along with the rest of the market.  Nice to have a backup scenario in this situation.

P.S. A couple of other quick AAPL trading comments:

• While Apple has done a terrific job moving into services, these are still only about 20% of company’s revenues. Meaning, Apple is still mostly a hardware company.
• Intel, also a hardware company, has had a similar run-up as AAPL. Last Thursday INTC blew away their numbers, benefitting from the Coronavirus “work at home” situation. Apparently, with mobile being such a huge focus the last few years, home desktop machines have been ignored and needed updating.
• In contrast, you don’t need to upgrade your iPhone to work at home.
• One last data point: Even though Intel blew out numbers, INTC finished flat for the day.