In short: Terranova groups it with Meta (19:23–20:01). The same "tangible product" dynamic is lifting Apple, which "looks like it's pressing towards a new all time high" as it gives consumers a visible AI product (Siri).
In short: Passing mention — Gene Munster's call "on Apple's really working out well" (the one good call he credits him with), plus the App Store chart Muse tops and the Apple Passwords comparison.
21:57About a month ago, I highlighted Gan Monster as the fail of the week. Now, the reason why was very specific. It's nothing against Gan. I like him as a person, and I actually think that Gan's a good guy. I like his analysis and his thoughts on companies, and he's made some good calls. his call on Apple's really working out well. But I highlighted him as the fail of the week because a month ago he became very bearish on Meta and it was during a time period where Meta was trading down big time and Meta stock had fallen to very low valuation territory. It
In short: Used as the control case rather than a pick — the stock most would guess as the best consumer performer since the financial crisis (first iPhone launched as the recession began), yet eclipsed by O'Reilly.
In short: Passing mention — #1 on the Fairfax slide of top-1% US compounders since 1985, at 22.7%/yr. No view.
In short: RPK: Vision Pro with an NBA courtside package at ~$2,000/yr "would sell millions" — add Live Nation concerts, IMAX at home, NHL on the glass; "Steve Jobs never would have missed it." Missing it means Apple "either can't or [is] just missing this." Sam adds the hardware still needs work. Also the profit-pool analogy: Android has most units, Apple most of the margin.
45:23— And I say this as a person who hates virtual reality stuff generally. Personally I wouldn't use it a lot, but I've demoed it. If you launched the Vision Pro with an NBA courtside package, for — pick a number — $2,000 a year subscription, it would sell millions. And that's just that.
In short: Everyone owns it; the committee splits on sizing at 35–36× forward (20:03–25:43). Raskin holds, "not sure I would be adding right now" — stable earnings, capex not blowing out, pricing power. Sechan: "Apple owns the customer, period, full stop… you can't be underweight Apple" — the benefit moves to the application layer and "every app is going to have to pay them." Lebenthal "trimmed it in half back before the last earnings" (keeps a $15-basis core). Baruch (by phone) is trimming 14% → 8% at "2 standard deviations above its median valuation." iPhone 18 Pro on sale; the $2,000+ foldable Duo next month.
Everyone on the desk owns Apple and admires the business; the argument is about how much to own at about 36 times expected earnings, near the top of its historical range. Sechan says Apple controls the customer relationship, so it will collect a toll from AI apps for years and no professional manager should hold less than the market does. Lebenthal and Bill Baruch trimmed because the price already reflects that; Raskin holds but won't add.
In short: Terranova's sixth consecutive purchase since late March — a technical buy. After July earnings the stock sold off from ~$330, then made higher lows; after the 9 Sept event it "challenged the 100 day moving average at 309. It held exactly there" and has recovered the post-earnings loss — "looking for it to break out to an all time high above 345." Morgan Stanley's Woodring: iPhone 18 lead times flat y/y "is actually a good start."
Terranova's case is mostly about the chart. After Apple's July earnings the stock fell, then kept making higher lows. A "100-day moving average" is the average price over the last 100 trading days; when a falling stock stops right at that line and bounces, traders read it as buyers stepping in. Apple did that at about $309 and has since made back the whole post-earnings drop, so he is betting on a new all-time high above $345.
In short: Hopeful on the new CEO: under John Ternus, "because he's a product guy… we hopefully don't have to wait eight years after Android introduces something." "I think we're going to see a massive upgrade cycle to the Duo phones, which is their foldable phone. It's about 50% bigger surface area than the Pro Max… a huge upgrade cycle next year in Apple." Tim Cook was "a supply chain god" who got the multiple to ~30x, but Apple is still shipping "a beta version of AI."
Niles' Apple case is about a new product cycle. Tim Cook was brilliant at running the supply chain, paying dividends and buying back shares, which pushed the stock to about 30 times earnings — a price usually reserved for very stable businesses. But Apple has lagged on new products: Android phones have folded since 2019, and Apple's AI is still in "beta."
The new CEO, John Ternus, is a product person, and Niles expects Apple's foldable "Duo" phone — about 50% more screen than the Pro Max — to drive "a huge upgrade cycle next year" as people who have waited years finally replace their phones.
1:07:54And so, I think we're going to see a massive upgrade cycle to the Duo phones, which is their foldable phone. It's about 50% bigger surface area than the Pro Max. I think you're going to see a huge upgrade cycle next year in Apple. For those of us who've been waiting since 2019, so eight years for a foldable phone.
In short: "The iPhone is the best product ever made" by commercial success; Meta's glasses always lead back to the phone, and the new large-screen "Duo" is "better in some ways, but it's overall worse" — good for reading, video and travel, while the standard iPhone wins for most users on camera, size and price.
In short: The counter-example in the heads-I-win-tails-I-win frame: if AI doesn't commoditize, Zuckerberg "is not in his competitor's prison the same way that Apple's been. Apple has no AI for themselves. They're just reliant on other people. They are dependent on AI eventually commoditizing." Also the historical toll-keeper Meta escaped — ATT "was a massive threat to Facebook," circumvented by rebuilding targeting with large AI models.
Apple appears here only as the cautionary comparison. Carlson says Apple "has no AI for themselves" and relies on other companies' models. That puts it in what he calls "his competitor's prison": if AI models stay scarce and valuable, Apple has to pay rivals for a technology central to its products. Apple's best outcome is for AI to become a cheap commodity — a bet on something outside its control. It's a strategic criticism rather than a call on the share price.
7:26dominate like distribution attention personalization and commerce if AI doesn't commoditize which is a real possibility then at least he is not in his competitor's prison the same way that Apple's been. Apple has no AI for themselves. They're just reliant on other people. They are dependent on AI eventually commoditizing.
In short: The $2,000 iPhone — a price lever, not a growth driver. New CEO John Ternus unveiled the iPhone Duo, Apple's first foldable, at $1,999 up to $3,199 (2TB) — "less than some analysts expected given the current RAM-aggeddon" — alongside the iPhone 18 Pro, Watches and AirPods. Dominating a tiny market: Apple is "seven years late" (Samsung's first Galaxy Fold, 2019) and foldables are still ~2% of global smartphone shipments; estimates see ~6M Duos in 2026 despite a late-October launch (~a quarter of the category) and first-year sales approaching 10M — against 200M+ iPhones a year, so Apple "could become one of the largest foldable vendors almost overnight without foldables becoming a major growth driver." Pushing prices higher: ~$210B of iPhone revenue last year; 10M Duos at ~$2,000 is ~$20B "but most of those customers would have bought another iPhone anyway" — the incremental economics are ~$700 per customer over a $1,299 Pro Max, ~$7B across 10M buyers before storage upsell. Pro and Pro Max +$100 after the memory crunch, older models pricier too, and no standard iPhone 18 this fall; "hardware growth now relies almost entirely on pricing power rather than unit volume" (chart: iPhone $54B in Q3 FY26 vs $45B a year earlier; Services $31B). AI as an ecosystem feature: Ternus' "Intelligent Personal Hub" pitch concluded the perfect AI device "already exists. It's the iPhone" — "almost like an early rebuttal to OpenAI and Jony Ive." New Siri uses personal context, understands the screen and acts across the OS (extended to Watch); Apple "does not necessarily need to win the foundation-model race," can use outside models, and monetizes indirectly — "Apple does not need a $20 monthly Siri subscription if AI helps sell more $1,200, $2,000, or even $3,000 devices." Takeaway: "New technology gives customers another reason to move up the hardware ladder and stay within the ecosystem."
Apple launched its first foldable phone, the iPhone Duo, at $1,999 and up. It's the flashy headline, but the author's point is that it barely moves Apple. Foldables are only about 2% of smartphones sold worldwide. Even if Apple sells 10 million — enough to grab a quarter of that market immediately — it sells over 200 million iPhones a year, so the Duo is a rounding error in units.
The useful way to value it is to ask what Apple earns that it wouldn't have earned anyway. Most Duo buyers would otherwise have bought an expensive iPhone. So the real gain is the difference: roughly $700 more than the $1,299 Pro Max, times 10 million buyers, is about $7 billion — meaningful, but a third of the $20 billion headline. That "incremental" arithmetic is the reusable lesson.
What the launch really shows is how Apple grows now: by charging more per phone, not selling more phones. The Pro models went up $100 (memory chips have become expensive), older models rose too, and there is no cheaper standard iPhone 18 this year — if you want the newest one, you buy a Pro or the Duo.
On AI, Apple's bet is different from OpenAI's or Anthropic's. It doesn't need you chatting with an Apple chatbot, or even to build the best AI model — it can borrow other companies' models. Its advantage is owning the phone, the software and your personal information (messages, photos, what's on screen), which is where an AI assistant becomes genuinely useful. Apple then gets paid indirectly: AI is another reason to buy a pricier device and stay inside the Apple ecosystem, rather than a $20 monthly subscription. Analysis, not a recommendation.
In short: Best week since July 17 (+4.5%) on the foldable's reviews — and Lebenthal still won't add, in the same standoff with Wapner he had three sessions earlier. "I think this is a delayed response to the product launch. People are reading reviews of the folding iPhone and saying, hey, maybe this is worth the $2000 price. I know I'm considering it… they may have the buzz going into the all important holiday season." But: "I have half the market weight. That's a long term core position… I do find it hard to put new money to work at a 34 times forward multiple… my actions speak louder than my words — I sold just before the last earnings report at $330… what would I look for to get back in? Something below 300, something that makes up for the taxes." His valuation anchor: "where has this historically over the last five years been a buy? It's been in the low 20s" — while conceding Wapner's bull case (Siri AI, the upgrade cycle, buybacks) is valid and that the multiple "may not revert back… it could go down. It doesn't have to."
Apple had its best week since mid-July as reviews of the folding iPhone landed. Lebenthal thinks the move is a delayed reaction to the launch and that the buzz arrives just in time for the holiday quarter — he is even considering buying the $2,000 phone himself.
He still will not buy more of the stock. At 34 times expected earnings, the price already assumes the good news; his own history says Apple has been a buy in the low 20s. He is not predicting a fall — "it may not revert back" — he is saying that as a value-driven investor he cannot justify new money here, and he backs that with an action rather than an opinion: he sold at $330 before the last report and wants below $300 to return, partly to cover his clients' tax bill on the gain.
In short: Used three ways: an index fund recycles only ~6% of an Apple dividend back into Apple (why Modigliani-Miller fails in an index world); rising Apple becomes a bigger index weight so "the next dollar into the passive fund buys more Apple"; and run it through Bloomberg's DDM ("AAPL Equity DDM") to see how far mega-caps sit above dividend-discount value.
Apple is his all-purpose example. First, dividends: when an index fund receives an Apple dividend and reinvests it, only about 6% goes back into Apple (its index weight) — so paying a dividend and buying back shares are not the same thing when your owners are index funds, contrary to classic finance theory.
Second, momentum: when Apple's price rises it becomes a bigger slice of the index, so the next dollar into index funds automatically buys more Apple. Third, valuation: he suggests running Apple through Bloomberg's dividend discount model — which values a stock by its future dividends — to see how far today's largest stocks sit above that yardstick. He is describing a mechanism, not recommending or shorting Apple.
42:25I encourage people who have access to a Bloomberg, go into Bloomberg, type in APL, Apple Equity, DDM. There is a dividend discount model which at one point people used enough that they would incorporate the feature within Bloomberg. It was a very quick valuation check that you could run. The vast majority of stocks in the S&P 500, particularly in the largest stocks, if you run them through those dividend discount models, would suggest that they are trading at valuations that are much much much higher than they deserve.
In short: The set-piece debate, one day before the event, and the desk splits cleanly. Terranova (constructive): "it sounds obnoxious to embrace a product that's going to have a price point somewhere between, call it 2100 and up to $3000… but I actually think there's a possibility that this gets some traction. Tim Cook, when he went to China in 2020, he observed what Samsung was doing… what Huawei was doing. You had in 2019 the Galaxy foldable phone. He went back and said we have to have a foldable phone… then not only do you have a foldable iPhone, you have a foldable iPad at some point… since [earnings] it's had a very steady gradual recovery, a series of higher lows… it's trading 315. The all time high is what, 334?" Lebenthal (too expensive): "this is about earnings… it was priced for perfection. I don't think there's anything they could have done last quarter to match the expectations in the multiple. And that's still the problem now… nothing that's going to happen this week with the product launch that isn't already expected… I just think it's too expensive. That's why I trimmed it at $330 and I'm in no rush to put it back in." The seasonal overlay, from BTIG: "in the last 10 years… Apple's been negative in September 7 times for an average return of −3.15%. It's the only month with a negative return… perhaps sell the news after the seasonal iPhone launch." The street: Needham reiterated Hold ($380 target), Buy at B of A, Moffett Nathanson Neutral — "they haven't fallen all over itself to express its bullishness."
The disagreement is the whole point, and both sides are coherent.
Terranova is buying an option on a new product category. His evidence is behavioural: when Samsung and Huawei launched foldable phones in 2019, Tim Cook went to look, and Apple's historic pattern is to arrive second at a category and execute it better. If a foldable iPhone works, a foldable iPad follows — but he explicitly says you will not know within September, so this is a multi-year argument, not an event trade.
Lebenthal is arguing about price, not product. He thinks the stock was "priced for perfection" going into the summer's earnings, the results could not clear that bar, and nothing about tomorrow's launch is unknown — so it is already in the price. The only genuinely unpriced event is the next earnings report, which will cover the holiday quarter. He trimmed at $330 and is in no hurry.
The statistic hanging over both: BTIG finds Apple has fallen in seven of the last ten Septembers, averaging −3.15%, the only month with a negative average return — consistent with the event itself being a "sell the news."
In short: Used to make the "infinity or zero" point philosophically rather than as a call: "all stocks eventually go to zero. All of them… Apple will go to zero someday, maybe 200 years from now, but it will go to zero someday. So there is a price at which something should be sold. You don't want to hold anything forever."
Apple is used as a thought experiment, not as a recommendation either way.
He is arguing against the "I'm never going to sell" mentality he sees in both stock and crypto holders, and he pushes it to its logical end: "all stocks eventually go to zero. All of them… Apple will go to zero someday, maybe 200 years from now, but it will go to zero someday."
The practical conclusion is what he calls infinity or zero — most people implicitly plan to sell either at an undefined infinite price or never, which are the same thing. "There is a price at which something should be sold. You don't want to hold anything forever." In the Awesome Portfolio this is not a judgment call at all: the annual rebalance does the selling for you, trimming whatever sleeve has run and topping up whatever has lagged.
11:27And I'm like, okay, well, just philosophically, if you think about this, all stocks eventually go to zero. All of them. They all go to zero. The goal is to sell them at some point before they go to zero. Apple will go to zero someday, maybe 200 years from now, but it will go to zero someday.
In short: Purely the survivor in the survivorship-bias argument — no view on the company. Niles: "you hear from the people who said, 'oh yeah, Apple was a buy and hold.' Well, you never have people on that say AOL was a buy and hold." Forehand extends it: "it's always great when you see grandma has the statement that she didn't realize she had and suddenly she had Apple and it's worth all this money… but if grandma had Enron in there in the drawer, that wouldn't have worked out so well."
31:47— and it's always great when you see grandma has the statement that she didn't realize she had and suddenly she had Apple and it's worth all this money, and that's great too because she wasn't doing anything. But if grandma had Enron in there in the drawer or whatever, that wouldn't have worked out so well. So you just have to understand it's great from the perspective of I hold companies for the long term and I don't overtrade my account, but it's not great from the perspective of you got to have the right company.
In short: A dated, event-specific negative — both hosts agree. Nathan on the September 9 event (new iOS, Siri, Apple Intelligence, a rumoured $2,000 foldable, and per Bloomberg's Mark Gurman "the largest product slate that they've had in a very long time," under a brand-new CEO): "the reason why I wanted to bring up the Tesla, I think this will be a sell the news, too. There's a lot of anticipation about it, and I think that folks are generally going to be a little disappointed." He notes the stock ran 343 to 300 in two trading days and is down 2¼ today. Adami — self-described Apple fan — frames the longer question as the multiple (services "now, I think, 27% of their overall revenue"; if it grows to either side of 30%, and if AI lifts services margins, "what does that mean for the multiple?"), notes the uptrend since roughly July of last year, and endorses the near-term call: "your point in terms of the sell the news event… that's spot-on."
This is a dated, event-specific negative, not a view that Apple is a bad business — Adami calls it one of his all-time favourites in the same breath.
The September 9 event is unusually large: a new iOS, a rebuilt Siri, Apple Intelligence, and a rumoured $2,000 foldable phone, delivered by a brand-new CEO. Nathan's argument is that because anticipation is that high, the event is more likely to disappoint than to surprise — the good news is already in the price, so the announcement becomes the moment to sell rather than to buy. Adami, who is generally constructive on the company, agrees the near-term setup is "spot-on."
The longer-term question they both actually care about is the services mix. Services — the App Store, subscriptions, payments — is roughly 27% of revenue and carries far higher margins than hardware. If that share pushes past 30%, the argument for Apple's premium valuation strengthens; if AI improves the margin on those services too, it strengthens further. So the bear point here is about a date, and the bull point is about a mix shift — they are not in conflict.
26:39It just seems like that was so 3 years ago and that's what we had. One of your all-time favorites, Apple, on September 9th, — Oh, I love the Apple. — They're releasing their new iOS. It's going to be Siri. It's going to be Apple intelligence. It's supposedly going to have a $2,000 foldable phone. Mark Gurman from Bloomberg, who's like the Apple whisperer, he's basically out on a story this morning that would be Friday talking about this is the largest product slate that they've had in a very long time. They have a brand new CEO.
In short: Less than a week from the iPhone event, with a pricing test attached. The report (South China Morning Post): the most expensive iPhone ever — $1,319 for the 18 Pro against $1,099 for the 17 Pro — driven by memory prices; the stock is down 2% on the day. Lebenthal frames and answers it: "this is obviously an attempt to defend margin with memory chip pricing… can they defend margin without killing the customer, without showing the elasticity of demand that comes with a price hike? The market's not sure… history shows that the consumer has consumed regardless of what Apple does with price hikes, and I think this time will be no different… the telecoms are still subsidizing this." Sechan gives the structural reason for the multiple: "they control the customer… it's similar to the spectrum back in the telecom days. Companies like Apple that controlled the customer were the largest beneficiaries. The commodity businesses, the Ciscos of the world that had the network infrastructure, did not." Weiss is the caution: a B of A note flags negative revenue growth in the App Store ("we've seen App Store revenues and growth declining"), the subsidy decision belongs to the telcos, and "when they launch the phone next week, they're going to have to show really, really good progress with Siri… if they don't, then I think it's going to be problematic." Wapner's frame: "the greatest test that this company has ever faced in terms of the pricing power it thinks it has."
Apple is about to launch its most expensive iPhone ever — a reported $1,319 for the top model against $1,099 last year — because the memory chips inside it have become dramatically more expensive. The company is passing that cost on rather than absorbing it.
The question the desk is really debating is elasticity: how much demand you lose for each dollar you add to the price. Lebenthal's answer is empirical — Apple has raised prices repeatedly and people have kept buying — with one structural support, the phone carriers who subsidise handsets to win customers. Sechan's is strategic: Apple owns the customer relationship, and in past technology waves the companies that owned the customer, rather than the ones that built the plumbing, captured the profits. That is why the market lets Apple trade at a premium.
Weiss is the sceptic, and his two objections are both checkable rather than atmospheric. App Store revenue growth is decelerating, per a Bank of America note. And the phone's headline feature — a genuinely improved Siri — has been promised and not yet delivered. If a much more expensive phone launches without the AI that was supposed to justify it, the pricing test gets much harder.
In short: Not spending on AI capex "worked out well" even if unplanned: "they're saying, 'Hey, Google, you go spend the $200 billion. We'll license it from you for a couple of billion.'" Late on AI (Siri AI US-only, English, beta) and on foldables (~7 years after Samsung), but the ecosystem is sticky, a "product guy" is now CEO, and "I think you're going to get a huge upgrade cycle sometime next year when you do get this out of beta." Caveat: much of the run has been multiple expansion.
Apple is late to AI. Its promised AI features for Siri were announced in 2024 and are still only in the US, only in English, and still a test ("beta") version. It is also years behind Samsung on folding phones. Niles doesn't pretend that was a master plan — "I'm not sure they planned it this way."
But it turned out well. Instead of spending hundreds of billions building data centers like Google, Microsoft and Amazon, Apple reportedly pays Google "a couple of billion dollars" a year to use its Gemini AI inside the iPhone. So Apple gets the AI without the cash drain — "Hey, Google, you go spend the $200 billion."
What he expects next is a big wave of people replacing their iPhones "sometime next year," once the AI is out of beta, translated into other languages (including Chinese), and paired with new hardware like a foldable. Apple's customers rarely leave its ecosystem, so a good product lands on a huge, loyal base. The one caution: much of the stock's rise so far came from investors paying a higher price per dollar of earnings, not from earnings themselves.
33:12And so I think you're going to get a huge upgrade cycle sometime next year when you do get this out of beta. You do have Chinese versions of this in the native language and all across the world. And then hopefully a much better product line that comes out. And so that's how I'm thinking about it.
In short: The survivorship-bias exhibit, cited only to attack the inference drawn from it: "You hear from the people who said, 'Oh, yeah, Apple was a buy and hold.' Well, you never have people on that say AOL was a buy and hold, Yahoo was a buy and hold, Nokia was a buy and hold, Cisco was a buy and hold." No view on the stock.
56:22lot of survivability bias. You hear from the people who said, "Oh, yeah, Apple was a buy and hold." Well, you never have people on that say AOL was a buy and hold, Yahoo was a buy and hold, Nokia was a buy and hold, Cisco was a buy and hold. The list is really long of market share leaders.
In short: Final trade of both Josh Brown and Joe Terranova — the only name two members picked. Brown leads with a tape rule: "don't I always say pay attention to the stocks that are up, notably up on the down days for the market? Well, Apple is a very good case in point. They are accumulating this name." The catalysts he lines up: "CEO just started. We're going to get a presentation on the foldable phone. Then we're going to get the 18. People want to be long this stock and they will probably take it through the record high of a few weeks ago." Terranova picked it first on the list and frames it as a management call: "I think it's a validation of John Ternus. It really is. I think a lot of people expected on the first day that Tim Cook steps away… anticipated a fall in the stock" — and it didn't come.
Apple is the only name two committee members chose as their final trade, and both arguments are about evidence rather than valuation.
Brown's is a tape rule anyone can run: on a day when the whole market is falling, note which stocks are up anyway. Buyers who are willing to pay up while everything else is being sold are usually buyers with a reason — he calls it accumulation. Apple was green on a day the Dow fell 400 points, and the calendar ahead gives those buyers something to aim at: a new CEO who has just started, a foldable-phone presentation, and the iPhone 18 behind it.
Terranova's is a management call. The handover from Tim Cook to John Ternus was widely expected to knock the stock on day one; it didn't. He reads that non-event as the market validating the new CEO, which removes a risk that had been hanging over the shares.
In short: Sold; "Apple's done really well."
In short: Two segments on Tim Cook's last day as CEO. Talkington, the owner on the desk, is unmoved: "I'm definitely long and not even thinking about selling it. They are locked in on their hardware — Android has had a foldable phone forever and no one's switching because we're so embedded and it's such a great product. Ternus is a product guy. Someone like Tim Cook is a unicorn — Satya Nadella, Larry Culp, there's a few of these non-founder CEOs that are unicorns, so you can't replace Tim Cook. But from the product side, if they can incrementally — it does not have to be exponential — continue to get Gemini inside of Siri where we can just ask questions and it pulls up all of our apps, we trust Apple. Apple's going to continue to do very well. Nothing's existential. No one's switching to an Android. We don't want an OpenAI device, we want the Apple device." Terranova frames the handoff as ideal: "John Ternus has been the chief hardware engineer — every product we've been blessed with, John's fingerprints are on them. Tim Cook is not going away; he remains executive chairman and has already indicated he'll manage the relationship with the president and with the Chinese. Isn't that the perfect setup? I don't think anyone should have any concern about where this leadership is going." Both concede the near-term test: "they need to deliver on Siri AI. That's the first step."
This was Tim Cook's last day running Apple. John Ternus, the long-time head of hardware engineering, takes over; Cook stays as executive chairman and, by his own account, keeps handling the relationships that matter politically — the US president and China. Terranova thinks that split is close to ideal: the product engineer builds, the diplomat handles the diplomacy.
Bryn Talkington owns it and is not selling. Her case is that Apple's grip is on the customer, not on any one gadget: Android phones have folded for years and nobody switched, because people's photos, messages, apps and habits all live inside Apple's system. She does not need a dramatic leap — just steady improvement, such as Google's Gemini being wired into Siri so you can ask a question and have it pull answers out of your own apps. Her line on the AI hardware threat is blunt: "we don't want an OpenAI device, we want the Apple device."
The complications are real and were reported the same afternoon. Apple has already raised Mac and iPad prices 20% and is signalling iPhone increases, memory chips are getting expensive, and Services — the high-margin App Store and subscriptions business — is slowing while regulators worldwide attack the 30% App Store commission (already cut to 25% in China). And Phil Schiller, who ran the App Store since the Jobs era, stepped aside into a figurehead role, on top of turnover in the CFO and COO seats. One genuine bright spot nobody expected: the Mac was Apple's fastest-growing segment last quarter, partly because AI labs are buying high-end Mac minis and Mac Studios to run models on their own desks.
In short: Cited as the bull's durability data point: "Apple services is still growing double digits today" — alongside Google search and Meta in the 20s, the basis for a possible 10–15 years of double-digit growth that "lifts all boats." Also excluded (with Meta) from the hyperscaler-cloud engine that drove Mag-7 performance.
2:41It's to be expected. I think we're still moving upwards on an S-curve with regards to AI adoption. And the bulls would say, hey, Apple services is still growing double digits today. Google search is still growing double digits today. Meta is growing in the 20s. And so you could have 10 to 15 years of double-digit growth for some of these AI labs.
In short: The single headline that broke the memory complex this week. "Apple is evaluating DRAM from CXMT and NAND from YMTC, two China-based memory companies, which pressured traditional memory players like SanDisk down 6%… Micron down 5%" — the deck adds that Washington is weighing whether to permit the Chinese suppliers in Apple products sold in China, with a decision possibly communicated after a reported Trump-Xi meeting in September. Under the setup, CXMT would supply DRAM and YMTC the NAND modules. Also among the ten most active options names on both Tuesday and Wednesday. No stated position — Apple is the buyer whose sourcing decision reprices its suppliers.
Apple is not the subject here; it is the cause. It is testing memory chips from two Chinese manufacturers — CXMT for the working memory and YMTC for the storage — for devices sold in China, pending a decision from Washington on whether that is permitted, possibly after a Trump-Xi meeting in September.
That single sourcing decision knocked 6% off SanDisk and 5% off Micron in a week. It is a good illustration of how much of a supplier's value rests on the assumption that it faces no credible new competitor: Apple has not switched, has not committed to anything, and is merely evaluating — and the market repriced the incumbents anyway.
The reason it is more than a scare is that Chinese memory capacity is state-supported and does not need to earn a normal return. The counter-argument, which Singh's own deck supplies, is that the Chinese entrants are in commodity memory rather than the high-bandwidth kind that AI accelerators need, and at a materially higher cost per bit.
Full passage: premium transcript (PDF).
In short: A sold holding he expects to do well.
In short: On Evercore's top-six tech-hardware list, with Wapner flagging the stall: "Apple's been a stall out — it had this amazing run, earnings happened and then the stock didn't happen." Raskin supplies the regime explanation rather than a call: "Apple does well when everybody worries about capital spending and too much money chasing AI, and they're the ones that aren't spending it and are still returning capital to shareholders. So when that's in vogue, Apple does really well. And when it's out of vogue, Apple doesn't do well. I'm not worried about Apple." In other words the stock is a hedge on AI-capex sentiment, and sentiment has swung back to the AI trade.
Apple ran hard, reported good earnings and then went nowhere — what Wapner calls a stall-out. Amy Raskin's explanation is not about the company at all; it is about which worry is currently fashionable.
When investors are anxious that the big technology companies are spending too much money building AI infrastructure, Apple looks attractive precisely because it is not doing that — it returns its cash to shareholders instead. When investors are enthusiastic about AI spending, that same restraint makes Apple look like it is missing out.
Right now enthusiasm is back, so Apple is out of favour. Her position — "I'm not worried about Apple" — is a statement that the swing is about sentiment cycles rather than deterioration, and those cycles reverse.
In short: Absent by name. "Apple and Tesla were entirely absent from the top-five holdings" across all 20 funds — an absence signal rather than a sell signal, but a total one. The single offsetting mention: Apple is still Berkshire's largest stock holding (Alphabet moved to third "behind Apple and American Express"). A disclosed author holding.
Apple sells iPhones, Macs and an enormous services business, and has been conspicuously slower than its peers to show a convincing AI product story.
The observation here is a blank space: "Apple and Tesla were entirely absent from the top-five holdings" of all 20 funds. Not trimmed — absent.
Read it carefully, though. These 20 funds are a hand-picked sample of aggressive, alpha-seeking managers; Apple remains Berkshire's largest stock holding, mentioned in this very article. Absence from a momentum-tilted sample means Apple is not where those managers are hunting for return, not that it has been abandoned.
In short: The precedent for the input-cost squeeze he is watching at Nvidia: high-bandwidth-memory costs are "what hurt Apple."
30:38So, things that could hurt gross margins for Nvidia could be like cost pressures, TSMC raising chips on wafer substrate packaging costs, high bandwidth memory costs, which is what hurt Apple. People are going to look at this earnings and look at hyperscaler CapEx read-throughs. A significant portion of Nvidia's revenues, right, comes from big cloud providers like Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta, Amazon.
In short: A product-timing hit: "Apple is reportedly still planning a glass-centric iPhone redesign for the device's 20th anniversary in 2027, despite the delay, which resulted in a sell[-off] in Apple stock." Also the top name Schwab clients sold in July, and Norway's sovereign fund's third-largest holding. Its Vision Pro is one of Unity's spatial-computing end markets.
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In short: The App Store named as an aggregator example — commoditized supply (millions of apps) with the aggregator taking the economics. Illustrative only; no stance on the stock.
In short: Red again, but Apple is pushing back on yesterday's underperform downgrade: it says it is still planning the glass-centric iPhone overhaul for the device's 20th anniversary (per a published report). Loop cuts its target to 340 from 350 but reiterates buy. Belsky: "this is a stock that's been underperforming for a while and all of a sudden it came back on again. I think this is clearly a dip action and I don't think there's any kind of fundamental anything wrong with this. They're going to kill it in the fourth quarter in terms of their new products, and it's one of our largest positions. We think you can't bet against Apple — you just absolutely cannot." Terranova quantifies the sentiment turn: "the bearishness builds once again. 56% of the analyst community have a buy rating on it — that's very low relative to the other trillion-dollar companies; a $329 12-month price target; and now you have 6 actual sell ratings on Apple, the first time you've seen this since 2020." His conclusion is two-speed: "in the interim this is sideways-to-lower trading action, but longer term the best positioning is to be long, because I think it moves towards Josh's 400 target. It's certainly tough to be underweight." Sechan: "we reduced it on the show in late July because it became such an outsized position because of the relative performance. This is healthy fundamentals being offset by a really rich valuation — they've re-rated a bit. I'm glad that we trimmed; however, we're still very long in the stock."
Apple fell again but pushed back publicly on yesterday's sell rating, saying the glass-centric iPhone redesign is still planned for the phone's 20th anniversary. Loop trimmed its target but kept a buy.
Brian Belsky is unequivocal: this is ordinary dip behaviour in a stock that spent a long time underperforming and only recently recovered, nothing is fundamentally wrong, the fourth-quarter product cycle should be strong, and Apple is one of his largest positions. "You can't bet against Apple — you just absolutely cannot."
Joe Terranova measures the mood instead of the business. Only 56% of analysts rate Apple a buy — strikingly low for a trillion-dollar company — and there are now six outright sell ratings, the first time since 2020. He reads that as near-term pressure ("sideways to lower") with a long-term conclusion in the opposite direction: stay long toward Josh Brown's $400 target, because "it's certainly tough to be underweight." Rob Sechan represents the middle path: he trimmed in late July when Apple's strong run made it an oversized share of his portfolio — "healthy fundamentals being offset by a really rich valuation" — and is glad he did, but remains "very long."
In short: Named only in the founder-CEO pattern: "They were all connected to people. Apple with Steve Jobs." Structural reference; no view.
In short: Advisory context rather than a stance: named among the huge low-cost-basis positions people refuse to trim for tax reasons — "the retail industry today, the number one stock is Apple, I think… they're going to sit there and watch these companies and just have the same idea, I'll never sell because of taxes."
35:29They have big profits on them, but they like they're like, well, I can't sell. I don't pay the tax. I'm like, well, you've got to factor in the value and the time value of money if you're inflating, and they forget to do that, and that's why you want to sell pieces of it, take your cost out, take some profit out, and just keep that in mind when you're looking at these big positions cuz the retail industry today, the number one stock is Apple, I think.
In short: The day's debate, and the desk splits four ways. Jefferies downgrades to underperform (target 263 from 285): supply-chain checks say the all-glass iPhone due September '27 is cancelled on low yield, "a major setback to efforts to bring higher-priced iPhones amid soaring memory costs" — one of only ~5 sells among 51 analysts, with a separate report that the 18 Pro's build cost is up ~40%. Lebenthal sold half: "it's more like death by a dozen cuts" (margin pressure, chip input costs, AI upgrades that are "kind of meh… third, fourth year in a row where they promised something") — but the sell call is nearly un-actionable for a taxable holder with a $15 cost basis, so he trimmed the ~190-basis shares only. Firestone holds: at 33× forward "it's easier for people to use all these arguments against it," so overweights cut 7–8% down to 4–5% and then reload near 23× — "this is a normal cycle and I don't have a problem holding the Apple." Terranova has bought it six times and it's up 26% from the June-25 low at 273, but momentum/positioning show holders paring back: "it is losing near-term momentum for sure… vulnerable for a deeper decline into the support of the moving averages. I will take the other side of it when it gets there" — long term "this is the mag seven that is going to stand out." Amoroso: resolving the memory bottleneck (lower average selling prices) is bad for semis but "probably great for somebody like Apple," and its ~3.5% free-cash-flow yield makes it good ballast against high-beta chips.
Apple got a rare "sell" rating. Jefferies cut it to underperform with a $263 target because a fancy all-glass iPhone planned for late 2027 has reportedly been cancelled (too many units came off the line broken), and because memory chips — which Apple must buy — have gotten dramatically more expensive. Without a pricier phone to sell, Apple has fewer ways to protect its profit margin; one report says the next Pro model costs about 40% more to build.
The committee split four ways rather than agreeing. Jim Lebenthal sold half his position: he thinks it's "death by a dozen cuts" and that Apple's AI promises are now in their third or fourth year of "I'll believe it when I see it." But his more useful point is about tax: for a client holding shares bought at $15, selling triggers a tax bill of 25–35%, so the stock would have to fall that much before selling even breaks even — which makes a sell rating almost impossible to act on. So he trimmed only the higher-cost shares he bought near $190.
Karen Firestone holds. Her frame is that at 33 times earnings every old worry (China, chips, competition) suddenly gets a hearing; investors who let Apple grow to 7–8% of a portfolio cut back to 4–5%, the stock falls, and near 23 times earnings the same people pile back in. "This is a normal cycle." Joe Terranova, who has bought Apple six times, says his momentum and positioning work shows holders paring back — so the stock is vulnerable to a deeper slide toward its long-run average price lines, and that is exactly where he plans to buy more, because he still thinks Apple is the "Magnificent 7" name that stands out long term. Anastasia Amoroso adds a twist: when the memory shortage eventually eases, chip stocks suffer but Apple benefits, and Apple's roughly 3.5% free-cash-flow yield (the spare cash it generates versus its price) makes it good ballast against volatile chip holdings.
In short: Referenced only as the gatekeeper in the Meta argument, not as an investment. The App Store's "very intense terms and conditions," review of "every single app update that Meta does," and a "history of favoring their own products and services on their platform above Meta's" are what Zuckerberg says costs him roughly half his profitability; the fee/toll-booth dynamic repeats on Android. The one comparative jab: Meta is going full-stack so it isn't "reliant on licensing other AIs like Apple now is." No stance on the stock.
14:08He views these companies as bottlenecks, big gatekeepers, duopolies to information. Apple, of course, has the App Store, which has very intense terms and conditions. They review every single app update that Meta does on any of their apps. They make sure everything's in compliance. Apple has a history of favoring their own products and services on their platform above Meta's.
In short: "Apple was the anti-AI trade leading up to the results and the stock hit an all-time high intraday on Wednesday. But the stock declined as investors re-grossed AI names… and it fell 7% on Friday in reaction to revenue and gross margin guidance that was below consensus on a lack of memory supply, because Apple requires memory for its iPad, its computers, and its phones." The mirror image of the Micron trade.
Apple had been the place investors hid from the AI spending frenzy — it isn't building data centres, so it looked safe, and the stock hit an all-time high intraday during the week.
Then it fell 7% on guidance that came in below expectations for both revenue and gross margin, and the reason was memory. iPhones, iPads and Macs all need memory chips, and the shortage driving Micron's record profits shows up on Apple's side as higher costs and constrained supply. The same trade that makes Micron a winner makes Apple a loser.
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In short: Named as one of the Berkshire portfolio holdings "that are working in this tape," and as Ethridge's rhetorical foil for Visa: "why do we always talk about Apple's massive installed base, but we never talk about the largest processor in the world? … Visa is literally in everybody's pocket the same way the iPhone is." Also cited (with Alphabet and Amazon) as a company that does have its own cash flow, unlike the neoclouds. No stance.
In short: Cited only inside Lebenthal's arithmetic for how easily the index reaches 8250: "if you look at the top ten stocks in the S&P 500, most of which are momentum, if those stocks went 5% higher, most of them would not hit an all-time high. NVIDIA 5% higher is not an all-time high. Microsoft 5% from here is not an all-time high. Same with Apple." No stance this episode.
In short: "Apple was safe until it missed earnings this week on spiking memory costs" — down 8% despite sales +16% to $109.4B and EPS $2.02 vs $1.89. Tim Cook called the memory squeeze a "100-year flood" and "looked petrified"; Apple even tried to source Chinese memory away from Micron and was warned off by the US government. Q4 revenue guided +9-11% vs 12% expected, services growth decelerating, EU App Store fines, and China sales $18.8B vs $19.6B expected.
Apple avoided the AI-spending backlash because it doesn't build data centers — until this week, when a different problem hit it. AI has driven memory chip prices up so violently that Tim Cook called it a "100-year flood," and those chips go into every iPhone and Mac. Apple even tried buying Chinese memory to escape the squeeze and was warned off by the US government.
Sales still beat expectations (up 16% to $109.4 billion), but the stock fell 8% because the profit outlook is now hostage to input costs it can't control, next quarter's growth was guided below expectations, services growth is slowing, China sales missed, and EU regulators are squeezing App Store economics.
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In short: Ternus handoff. Q3 revenue +16% Y/Y to $109.4B ($0.5B beat), EPS $2.02 ($0.13 beat) — June-quarter records, yet shares fell ~6%. Tariff refunds added $0.11 but the underlying beat held. iPhone +22% to a record $54.3B, Mac +29% to a record $10.4B, China rebounded 22% to $18.8B; Services slowed to +12% ($30.7B). Tim Cook's final call before John Ternus takes over in September, and he leaves a good problem: Apple cannot make enough devices — unexpectedly strong iPhone and Mac demand exhausted its flexibility to secure advanced chips, hitting Mac this quarter and broadening to iPhone, Mac and iPad in September. Guide of 9%–11% revenue growth (iPhone mid-teens) still came in below consensus. Memory is the bigger margin problem: Cook calls it a "hundred-year flood," with rising prices already forcing Mac and iPad price increases; ex-tariff gross margin fell sequentially and another step down is expected in Q4 as cheap inventory runs out. R&D +32% to $11.7B on the AI push; Cook hinted heavy Siri users could be steered to pricier iCloud+ tiers. (Recap, not a stance call.)
Apple had record June-quarter sales and the shares still fell 6%, because the problem is no longer demand — it's that Apple cannot build enough. Demand for iPhones and Macs came in higher than planned, and Apple had already committed its supply of the most advanced chips, so it has nothing left to flex. That shortage hits Macs now and spreads to iPhone and iPad next quarter, which is why the sales forecast came in light despite a strong product cycle. The other squeeze is memory chips: Tim Cook called the price surge a "hundred-year flood," Apple has already raised some Mac and iPad prices, and profit margins are set to step down again once the cheaper chips it bought earlier run out. This was Cook's last earnings call — John Ternus takes over in September and inherits both the strong cycle and the supply and margin pressure. A recap, not a call.
In short: "The only of the group that I don't own." Apple sits in a different category — it "has not invested into the capex, it's fine sitting there in the distribution layer." It beat on both lines but fell ~6% on soft guidance and supply-chain concerns: "these are run-of-the-mill issues. Nothing that I see intrinsically concerning about Apple… Overall, Apple's report was fine."
Apple is the one of the four big tech reporters he doesn't own, and he puts it in a different bucket: it hasn't made the giant AI infrastructure bet, and is content to sit in the distribution layer — owning the device people use rather than the data centers behind it.
The quarter itself beat expectations on both revenue and profit; the ~6% fall came from cautious guidance for the coming quarter and some supply-chain friction. Carlson's read is deliberately undramatic: "these are run-of-the-mill issues. Nothing that I see intrinsically concerning… Overall, Apple's report was fine." No buy call, no bear call.
21:08Apple has not invested into the capex. It's fine sitting there in the distribution layer. Apple reported a beat on both accounts, but there's a small disappointment with the earnings. The stock is down 6%. Investors were concerned about soft guidance, some supply chain issues. These are run-of-the-mill issues. Nothing that I see intrinsically concerning about Apple. I think the company's fine.
In short: "Apple was disappointing." The headline is fine — EPS 202, +29%, "no problems here"; revenue $109.4B "was fine." The misses are where the story lives: "revenue from the all-important services division of 30.4 billion missed expectations, and China sales amounted to 18.8 billion. Also a disappointment." Shares −4% after hours. (He owns it; Dan Ives made the bull case four days earlier.)
Apple's headline numbers were fine: profit per share up 29%, total revenue in line — "no problems here." The disappointment is in the two lines investors actually own the stock for.
Services — the App Store, iCloud, subscriptions, the high-margin recurring revenue that justifies Apple's premium valuation — missed expectations. And China, its most important growth market and the one most exposed to local competition and politics, was also weak. Shares fell about 4% after hours.
He owns it. The tension worth holding is that Dan Ives made the bull case four days earlier on this same podcast — Apple as the toll booth on consumer AI, monetising 2.5 billion devices without spending on models. This quarter is a reminder that the toll booth still has to keep collecting: if services growth stalls, the "we don't need to spend" argument gets harder to make.
19:18And the stock was down 17% on Thursday. And finally, Apple and Amazon reported Thursday night. Apple was disappointing. Amazon was strong. With respect to Apple, EPS was 202, up 29%. No problems here. Total revenue of 109.4 billion was fine. However, revenue from all important services division up 30.4 billion.
In short: Engine 2 illustrated — the uncomfortable half. "Just take Apple from 2022 to 2025. The stock went up more than 60% during that period… But Free Cash Flow went down during the same period. What happened? The answer is multiple expansion. The market decided that instead of being worth 20x cash flow, Apple was worth 40x." Also used earlier as the ownership thought experiment: buying one share means being willing to buy the whole company for $4.6 trillion.
In short: Ives: "Apple is the EasyPass on the consumer AI highway… 20% of the world is going to access AI through an Apple device," and it now has "a strategy that you can monetize the 2.5 billion iOS devices, 1.5 billion iPhones." The stance is deliberate: "Apple's standing back and saying, we'll let you all worry about that… whoever wins we'll use in our models. That's what new Siri is." Eisman owns it but flags it as "a little on the outside looking in" — though its balance sheet and cash flow are "better than anybody else's."
Apple is the one big technology company not spending enormous sums on AI, which is either a strategic failure or the whole point depending on who you ask. Eisman, who owns it, admits it's "hard to figure out exactly where they are in this ecosystem" — while noting its balance sheet and cash flow are "better than anybody else's" precisely because it isn't spending.
Ives' metaphor is a toll booth: "Apple is the EasyPass on the consumer AI highway." Roughly a fifth of the world will reach AI through an Apple device, and Apple now has a way to charge for that across 2.5 billion iOS devices. The new Siri is the strategy in miniature — Apple doesn't build the model, it rents whichever one is best and brands the result as its own: "you're not going to call it an OpenAI model… you're going to call it New Siri. And so we win anyway." Let the others burn the capital and take the headline risk.
25:01The reality is like 20% of the world is going to access AI through an Apple device. Did they stumble out of the gates many times sort of overpromising on delivering but now like you actually have an AI strategy that you can monetize the 2.5 billion iOS devices 1.5 billion iPhones. And I just think for app, I think part of why the stock's doing what it's doing is investors are finally starting to understand you could be late to the game if you're Apple, but if you monetize the consumer ecosystem, with Apple, you don't have to worry as
In short: Named in passing in the same breath — one of the "very low capex, very high free cash flow… capital light" models with "great network effects" that made them "such great stocks for so long," a status the AI spending era is eroding.
45:45free cash flow business models capital light that's why they were with great network effects that's why They were such great stocks for so long and Google's been my favorite in the space for a long long time but Microsoft and Apple too and it wasn't that long ago they were trading at 10 11 times earnings but maybe someday they'll be back there given what they're doing.
In short: Per Niles: Apple benefits from others' AI capex because it isn't building its own stack (Google is the partner, "so they're allowing Google to spend instead"). But Q3/Q4 revenue and margin estimates are too high given semiconductor and especially memory cost inflation, and at 37× PE the valuation is expensive — "he's not a buyer of Apple here." Longer term still bullish on the foldable upgrade cycle. The report frames it as avoid/reduce.
Apple has an enviable position in one respect: it isn't spending tens of billions building its own AI infrastructure — it lets Google do that and partners with it — so it keeps the cash its rivals are burning.
But the case against it is straightforward. The estimates for this quarter and next assume revenue and profit margins that Dan Niles thinks are too high, because the components Apple buys — especially memory chips — are getting sharply more expensive in the AI shortage, and Apple can't pass all of that on. And at 37× earnings the stock is priced for good news. "He's not a buyer of Apple here." The longer-term bull case (the foldable iPhone upgrade cycle) is a story for later.
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In short: The template, not a pick: since its first buyback in 2012 Apple has retired "over 40% of its stock" and re-rated from a pre-teen to a high-30s multiple. "Apple foreshadowed this trend" — the shrinking-equity playbook now spreading to Japan, Korea and the UK, which is where he wants to be ("where the puck is going"). Also the company that disrupted BlackBerry.
12:33The multiple's gone from being pre-teen, right, to high30 level, right? And so they have this massive buyback on place. And so what we're seeing and hearing as more North American investors like us travel the world and we just talk to management teams, we're like, why don't you take a page out of the playbook from the North American companies which are buying back their stocks, — right? And so that I think that trend is still in its early days in it's yeah Japan it's been in place for 10 years and then now Korea
In short: Arguably right to sit out the AI-capex race — "they didn't take the risk the other companies were taking that might prove to be unfounded." Won't opine on the stock specifically.
Apple largely sat out the giant AI spending spree, and its stock has run hard while the big spenders wobble. Chanos won't give a view on the stock, but he thinks Apple "arguably made the right decision" — it avoided a risk that "might prove to be unfounded."
His worry is entirely on the capital-heavy side of AI (data centers, chips, off-balance-sheet debt) — "that's where the blow-ups are going to happen." Apple mostly isn't there.
38:01I think in large part due to the fact that they've been sort of watching everybody else. Thoughts on that? Not specifically the stock, but just in terms of maybe they made the right decision to sort of wait it out. — They didn't take the risk that the other companies were taking that might prove to be unfounded.
In short: The breakout leading the mega-cap bounce. Baruch: "you have to like Apple here a lot" — best of both worlds (consumer-dominating front end + the "anti-CapEx trade" pushing the multiple higher); targets 370, then Josh Brown's 400 (a "100% extension"). "June 12th we added more Apple in our concentrated portfolio," now his "number three name" — "we're going to let this thing ride." Sechan: the most expensive mega cap and "certainly leading the bunch," on Josh Brown's thesis that Apple is "the consumer entry into AI" — to reach the consumer you go through a device.
Apple is breaking out to new highs and leading the mega-cap bounce. Bill Baruch's case is "best of both worlds": Apple both dominates the consumer's device (the way people will actually reach AI) and — unlike Microsoft, Meta and the other hyperscalers — isn't pouring cash into expensive AI data centers. Because it isn't caught in that spending arms race (the "anti-CapEx trade"), investors will pay a higher multiple for it. He sees it running toward 370, then 400, and has been buying: he added more on June 12, and it's now his #3 holding — "we're going to let this thing ride."
Rob Sechan agrees Apple is "the consumer entry into AI" (a Josh Brown idea): the everyday user gets to AI through a phone, so whoever owns the device has an edge — which is why OpenAI and Meta are scrambling to build their own hardware.
In short: The headline — a new intraday all-time high (~$320, first since June). Terranova: it's a "tactical trade," buying the breakouts (last ~$310 Thursday), momentum near-term stretched so he'll sit back, would buy more after earnings — his "All Star of 2026," and the $320 12-mo average target / only 61% buy rating shows an "embedded skepticism" that's the upside setup. Sethi: raising prices with positive FCF and buybacks vs the negative-FCF Fab-7 spenders — a "safe ship in a spending storm" investors want to hold. On the Friday OpenAI lawsuit: Lebenthal calls it routine IP protection, not an existential threat; Terranova agrees but flags the Jony Ive departure as "somewhat disturbing," not dismissible.
Apple hit a new record high (around $320). Joe Terranova is playing it as a "tactical trade" — buying it as it breaks out to new highs rather than as a forever-hold — and after a strong run he'll pause and add more only after the next earnings report. He calls it his "All Star of 2026." His favorite bullish signal is counter-intuitive: Wall Street analysts' average 12-month price target is only about $320 (right where it trades) and just 61% rate it a buy — meaning the pros are still skeptical, which leaves room for the stock to surprise them.
Sarat Sethi's angle is safety: unlike the other big tech names pouring cash into AI and running negative free cash flow, Apple still generates lots of cash, buys back its own stock, and is raising prices — "a safe ship in a spending storm." His view is that investors would rather hold a proven, low-drama compounder than chase the heavy AI spenders. (A side debate: Apple's new lawsuit against OpenAI — Lebenthal calls it routine legal housekeeping, not a sign Apple is scared, though the departure of design legend Jony Ive to OpenAI gives Terranova some pause.)
In short: Filed a "thermonuclear" lawsuit against OpenAI after a former senior Apple design executive allegedly ran a monthslong campaign to steal detailed hardware designs. Carlson reads Apple's strategy as leveraging the IP theft to "wrap up OpenAI in legal purgatory" and block its hardware — because "Apple does consider OpenAI a very real threat when it comes to hardware."
Apple sued OpenAI after a former senior Apple design executive allegedly moved to OpenAI and, over weeks, deliberately stole detailed designs for Apple's hardware. Carlson stresses this isn't Apple overreacting to a couple of documents — the theft looks extensive. Apple filed what's been called a "thermonuclear" lawsuit, and Carlson reads Apple's real goal as tactical: use the theft to tie OpenAI up in court for as long as possible so it can't release its own devices.
The tell, in his view, is that Apple clearly considers OpenAI a genuine threat in hardware — it knows OpenAI is building devices and has strong AI models — so Apple wants to keep a dangerous future rival stuck "in legal purgatory." He's describing the strategic fight, not making a buy-or-sell call on Apple stock.
25:05Apple in essence is looking to exploit this decision from OpenAI and use it to their advantage. If they can make it so OpenAI can't develop any type of hardware for as long as possible, that's good for Apple. And aside from what you may actually believe, Apple does consider OpenAI a very real threat when it comes to hardware.
In short: The memory-cost casualty: raised iPad/iPhone prices 20-30% and is now testing CXMT DRAM with US-government sign-off — read by Singh as a bargaining chip to pressure SK Hynix/Micron on pricing (China restricts CXMT exports anyway). A possible CXMT-Apple deal is a memory bear case.
Apple is caught in the memory-price squeeze — it's already raised iPad and iPhone prices 20-30% because memory got so expensive. The news is that Apple is testing memory chips from CXMT, a Chinese supplier, with US-government sign-off. Singh reads this less as a real supply switch (China restricts those exports anyway) and more as a negotiating tactic — waving a cheaper Chinese option to pressure its usual suppliers, SK Hynix and Micron, to cut prices.
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In short: Brown's highest-conviction call — the one place the CapEx value accrues: 2.5B devices as the gateway to consumer AI, and it's not playing the CapEx game. ~1% from an ATH (better-than-V recovery); $100B buyback; Sept 1 John Ternus takes over → foldable + iPhone 18 (20–22M units) + "bring-your-own-LLM" agentic Siri (ChatGPT or Claude, "we get paid in the App Store either way"). Jason agrees — market favor for the wait-and-see, low-spend model.
Josh Brown's single biggest conviction is that Apple is where all the AI spending eventually pays off. His logic: everyone else (Microsoft, Meta, Google, Amazon) is pouring hundreds of billions into building AI, but history says the value flows to whoever owns the customer — just as the phone companies built the internet's plumbing while Instagram (7 employees) captured the value. Apple has 2.5 billion devices already in people's hands, so it can simply layer AI on top and collect the fees, without spending on the expensive build-out itself.
The catalysts he sees: the stock is within ~1% of an all-time high, there's a $100 billion buyback, and on September 1 new chief John Ternus takes over with a likely foldable iPhone and a smarter Siri that lets you "bring your own" AI model (ChatGPT, Claude, whatever) — Apple gets paid through the App Store either way. Jason Snipe agrees: Apple's wait-and-see, low-spending approach is being rewarded. Bryn's caveat is on the enterprise side, not Apple — she thinks Apple "crushes it" with consumers.
In short: The memory-cost casualty — lost $263B in a day (−6%), its biggest drop in over a year, after a blanket 20% MacBook/iPad price hike (base iPad Pro $999→$1,199) blamed on a "once-in-a-century" memory flood (Cook). It's even lobbying Washington to buy LPDRAM from China's CXMT (on the Pentagon's 1260H list), the risk being a Commerce Entity-List ban mid-iPhone-18 ramp. Selling off relative to the Mag 7.
Apple got caught in the memory-price spike. Because chipmakers shifted their factories to the ultra-profitable memory that AI servers need, ordinary memory for phones and laptops became scarce and expensive — Tim Cook called it a "once-in-a-century flood." Apple raised MacBook and iPad prices ~20% across the board (a base iPad Pro went from $999 to $1,199), and investors, worried it can't fully pass those costs on, wiped out $263 billion of Apple's value in a single day. It's even lobbying Washington for permission to buy cheaper memory from a blacklisted Chinese supplier — a sign of how tight things are.
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In short: Referenced as the analogy for Meta's glasses bet — the Apple Watch "used to just tell time," then Apple "added use cases" (heart rate, steps) to a product people already wore; Meta is trying the same with glasses people already wear.
31:11Now, it can take your heart rate, your steps, and a bunch of other things. Apple added use cases to an existing product that you are already using. Meta is trying to do the same thing, adding an immense amount of use cases and functionality and technology into a product that you're already likely using. You're using glasses because of prescription lenses, and you're using
In short: The memory-cost victim — forced ~20-28% consumer price hikes (base iPad +28%, Mac Studio/iPad Air +25%) blaming "unprecedented" AI-data-center memory demand; sold off ~6% on the likely non-full-pass-through margin hit. Down ~13% from highs; capex-light, so less hated than the spenders.
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In short: Referenced — on the wrong side of the crunch: raising iPhone prices because memory costs are surging. Micron's 85% gross margin is Apple's cost line. A disclosed author holding.
In short: Weiss (worst day since April '25): as Apple keeps raising prices, will the telcos keep subsidizing as much of the handset? And if Starlink eventually comes in (it subsidizes), "it's not a good story for the wireless companies" — and a risk to Apple's model. A cautionary, not constructive, read.
Apple had its worst day since April '25, and Weiss frames the risk around how iPhones get sold. Today, wireless carriers (the "telcos") subsidize a big chunk of each phone's price to lure customers onto their plans. As Apple keeps raising prices, the question is whether carriers will keep eating that cost — and if not, demand could suffer. He adds a longer-term wildcard: if Elon Musk's Starlink eventually offers consumer mobile service, it could disrupt the whole carrier-subsidy arrangement Apple's sales lean on. It's a cautionary take — reasons to worry, not a reason to buy.
In short: The crack made visible — raised Mac prices ~15–20% and iPads 15–25% (iPhone hinted next), Tim Cook blaming Micron's memory costs; stock −5%. "Strictly inflationary… a drag on unit volume sales" and on the whole tech sector — fewer upgrades, less money left for AI services.
Apple is the company that makes Carlson's warning visible. Because memory chips have gotten so expensive (thanks to Micron's price hikes), Apple raised prices on Macs by about 15–20% and iPads by 15–25%, with iPhones hinted to follow — and CEO Tim Cook openly blamed the chip "memory guys." Unlike the big AI spenders, Apple refuses to absorb the cost in its margins, so it pushes it straight onto customers. The stock fell 5%.
Carlson's concern isn't really about Apple's quality; it's about what this signals. This is the first time the huge AI build-out costs — until now hidden inside corporate budgets — have shown up as higher prices for ordinary consumers buying everyday products. He expects it to drag Apple's unit sales and ripple across the whole tech sector (pricier devices mean less money for AI subscriptions and fewer upgrades), and views it as inflationary and the cycle's first real warning sign.
2:14So, they're jacking up the price. Now, that's fine and that's great for the Micron investor, but there's one company that doesn't want to bear those costs, and that is Apple. Apple needs advanced memory for every one of their devices. And unlike all these other big tech companies funding all this expansion, willing to throw their free cash flow into the negative and have it hit their margins, Apple's not willing to do that.
In short: Down on Thursday too — it raised prices on its MacBook and iPad "because of higher memory chip prices" (the flip side of the memory-scarcity boom lifting Micron/SanDisk).
10:08Net net, NASDAQ was down on Thursday, so much for the rally. This supports our thesis that investors are willing to play scarcity, but the new capital intensity of the hyperscalers combined with the lack of moats has destroyed the momentum in these stocks. One more point, the capital intensity would not be so bad if they were large moats.
In short: The day's casualty (−6%, lows of day): "Micron's gain is Apple's pain" — forced to raise MacBook/iPad prices on higher DRAM costs, raising the demand-destruction question. Caveat — Brown: for an investor a great opportunity (most pricing power of any company, found its April low ~269 at the rising 200-day); for a trader, stand back.
Apple is the flip side of Micron's win: "Micron's gain is Apple's pain." Because memory chips have gotten so expensive, Apple is being forced to raise prices on MacBooks and iPads to protect its profit margins. The worry is "demand destruction" — if you raise prices too far, people simply buy less, which would hurt sales. The stock fell more than 6% to the day's lows on exactly this fear.
Brown splits the verdict by time horizon. For a short-term trader, stand back — the chart is weak. But for a long-term investor he thinks it's a good opportunity: Apple has "more pricing power than any other company," and the stock stopped falling right at the same level where it bottomed in April, which also happens to line up with its rising 200-day moving average (a widely-watched long-term trend line — buyers tend to step in there). Stephanie Link's caution: nobody even knows what Apple's AI strategy is yet.
In short: The worked example of the size problem: on ~$400bn of revenue, a 20% year means finding $80bn of new sales — "iPads and Macs combined generated $62 billion in revenue last year. Apple would have to invent an entirely new category bigger than both to grow by 20%." Used as arithmetic, not as a view.
In short: Same context as NVIDIA — an over-owned, margined name; "you can't have the entire stratosphere of stock investors piled into 10 stocks without expecting some sort of an issue."
Apple is named in the same breath as NVIDIA — another mega-cap that nearly everyone owns, frequently with leverage. Schectman's worry isn't Apple specifically; it's concentration: "you can't have the entire stratosphere of stock investors piled into ten stocks without expecting some sort of an issue." If that crowd has to de-leverage in a downturn, the selling spills into everything, gold included — but only for a moment before metals resume higher.
53:53for precious metals beyond what they've already fallen so far? Well, I think that's what we're supposed to believe, that they throw out the baby with the bathwater. To me, it's always been MOPE, management of perception economics, as Jim Sinclair used to say. In reality, how many of the people that are on margin with NVIDIA and Apple and SpaceX have a whole big position in gold that they have to sell in order to come up with margin liquidity? When the market collapsed in 2020, yes, gold sold off, but it came right back up.
In short: Listed among the US top-5 (Nvidia, Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, $2.7–5.1T) in his Europe-vs-US tech-concentration comparison — reference, not rated this week.
18:08And all five, Nvidia, Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon are in information technology or tech related. Investing in large cap in Europe means not much tech exposure. I like chocolate as much as anyone. So Nestlé sounds like a good company, but it's hardly a compelling investment story. You might think that investing in Europe is a hedge to the US. But I don't think it really is.
In short: Cautionary contrast — Apple is "beholden" to Google to power its AI, the exact dependency Meta's capex is meant to avoid by staying full-stack.
22:59Zuckerberg describes it as a company that builds new applications, new experiences, new features. To be able to build all of this stuff, you need to have the best tools possible. If Meta is reliant on renting those tools from Gemini, renting them from OpenAI or Anthropic, then now they're no longer full stack. They're beholden to someone else.
In short: The "accidental hedge" — handed Siri's brain to Google (a custom ~1.2T-param Gemini branded "Foundation Models on Cloud," ~$1B/yr) rather than owning the frontier. Renting skips the CapEx arms race and shifts off-switch risk to a vendor; the trade-off is Apple no longer controls its flagship's brain (and Siri AI is excluded from the EU).
Apple has been embarrassingly slow at AI — the smart Siri it promised in 2024 slipped more than two years and even drew a lawsuit. This article argues that lateness accidentally protected it. Instead of building its own giant AI model, Apple is renting one: it pays Google about $1 billion a year to run a custom version of Google's Gemini model (with ~1.2 trillion "parameters," a rough measure of a model's size/capability) as the new brain behind Siri, keeping only a tiny model on the phone itself.
Why that's a hedge: building a frontier model means spending tens of billions on data centers ("CapEx," long-term capital spending) and owning an asset a government could order switched off — exactly what just happened to Anthropic. By renting, Apple sidesteps that bill and that risk; if one model becomes a problem, it can swap it. The cost is control — the smartest version of Apple's flagship assistant now runs on a direct rival's model, it won't launch in the EU, and Apple's edge narrows to privacy and how neatly everything integrates. The piece reads it as a strategic stance, not a buy/sell call.
In short: Named as one of the larger incumbents (Apple Music) Spotify beat despite "little less cash" — supports the moat argument.
2:51If you don't believe that digital applications like Duolingo have a moat, then what is the moat of Spotify? And you have to answer the question as to how Spotify got over 60, 70% market share in the audio streaming industry despite being against larger incumbent players like Apple, like Amazon, like YouTube, and still dominated that industry despite having little less cash.
In short: Abandoning the LLM race "is starting to look like a great decision" — Apple won't be raising capital. New Siri is "much better, but the bar was pretty low"; teaming with Google for AI. Features gate the upgrade cycle (iPhone 15 Pro minimum; iPhone 17 / Air for advanced).
Apple sat out the AI arms race — and Eisman now thinks that looks smart, precisely because everyone else is being forced to raise capital and Apple won't have to. The downside: Apple still needs an AI story, so it's leaning on Google's models and shipping a new Siri that's "much better, but the bar was pretty low" (i.e., it's catching up, not leading).
The practical hook is that the better AI features require newer iPhones (a 15 Pro at minimum, a 17 or Air for the advanced ones), which should help nudge people to upgrade.
14:00In its recent round of funding, OpenAI raised 122 billion from investors at an 852 billion valuation. So an IPO where OpenAI raises 100 billion is certainly a strong possibility. This week, Apple hosted its annual worldwide developers conference. Apple has been having issues with its AI strategy. On the one hand, Apple long ago abandoned participating in the LLM race, and given how much AI capex keeps going up, that's starting to look like a great decision.
In short: His S-curve case study — a huge winner from 0-50% US smartphone penetration; he sold in 2012 once it hit ~50% (illustrative, not a current call).
25:34was our largest position. and it would go up 50 70% a year um except for '08 and then we sold in 20 2012 when it got to sort of 50% of the US had a smartphone and with Apple you know they maintained their leadership position it had a couple years of underperformance and then the multiple got low and they added several ancillary things and then they al also got to play in the uh the application because they get 30% % of the app.
In short: Rumored again as an Intel foundry customer — "it will be small," but people hope it leads to something else.
34:47Apple was mentioned again it will be it will be small — but people hope that that will lead to something else. And then one thing that I think is a positive for them is there's a lot of demand for this on the AI side for what's called packaging. Again, when you look at an AI chip, it's not a single chip.
In short: Disclosure-only — one of the author's App Economy Portfolio holdings (not discussed in the body).
In short: "Good quarter, but not a great quarter" — EPS 2.01 vs 1.65 last yr (+22%), a beat; total revenue +17%, also a beat. The not-small negative: iPhone sales missed estimates for the second time in three quarters.
Apple's quarter was "good, but not great" — earnings up 22% and a revenue beat, but the soft spot is the one that matters most: iPhone sales missed estimates, the second miss in three quarters. With the iPhone still Apple's core engine, repeated misses there keep Eisman neutral rather than enthusiastic.
26:18And finally, Apple reported Thursday night. It was a good quarter, but not a great quarter. Earnings per share was 201 versus $1.65 last year, 22% growth, and a beat versus expectations. Apple reported total revenue growth of 17%, which was also a beat. The only negative, and it's not a small one, is that sales for iPhone missed estimates for the second time in three quarters.
In short: "Apple actually I find somewhat risky as an investment." Everything emanated from one founder who's been gone a long time — "basically nothing new has come out since he left" (the Disney-without-Walt parallel). Big form-factor risk: the pocket "brick" will be replaced by something more ergonomic, "probably some guy in a garage" — more likely not Apple.
Apple makes the iPhone, Mac and its ecosystem of devices and services. Unusually for a company this admired, Pabrai says he finds it "somewhat risky as an investment." His reason: Apple's magic came almost entirely from one person, Steve Jobs, who has been gone a long time — and in his view genuinely new products have dried up since (he draws the parallel with Disney, which had to buy Pixar once Walt Disney was gone).
The bigger worry is "form-factor risk." Today everyone carries a rectangular "brick"; eventually that shape will be replaced by something you wear or something more natural — and the company that invents it is "probably some guy in a garage somewhere," most likely not Apple. Apple could survive by spotting and buying that innovator early, but he rates the odds of that low.
1:16:45And if you look at Apple, basically nothing new has come out since he left. We don't have a Steve Jobs at Apple. And and the same thing happened at Disney. you know, they had to buy Pixar because there was no Disney anymore. Mr. Disney was gone. And so Apple actually I find somewhat risky — as an investment. — Yes.
In short: "A phenomenal business, very profitable, high return on invested capital." But used as the counter-example to the golden goose: it's so cash-generative it can't reinvest it all — "one of the reasons they started buying back shares… they have too much cash and don't know what to do." Admired, not pitched as a buy here.
Slegers admires Apple — hugely profitable, high returns on capital — but raises it as the limit of a great business, not a pick here. It throws off so much cash that it can't reinvest it all in the business, which is why it hands so much back through share buybacks. That makes it a fine company but not the compounding machine he prizes, where profits can be reinvested at a high rate for years.
25:59Can you give an example of a company that most folks would recognize that you think is a good standard of that? Yeah, as mentioned those companies are very rare. Take Apple for example. Apple is a phenomenal business, very profitable, high return on invested capital and so on. But the problem with those kind of companies is all of a sudden they are so profitable, they pour out so much cash that they just don't know what to do with it anymore.
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Verbatim excerpts from the public transcripts (auto-pulled at each mention's timestamp, lightly cleaned). Timestamps link into the video; "source page" opens that commentator's full analysis at this row. Click a mention's header line to expand it (one open at a time). For personal study — not investment advice.