If there is one U.S. technology titan dependent upon China and other nations targeted with tariffs in Asia, look no further than Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL). Apple’s shares have been crushed during the back-and-forth news flow of tariff retaliation to trade war concerns.
Would an iPhone cost close to $2,000 suddenly? That dollar amount may simply be a placeholder for an example, but Wall Street and Main Street were bracing for Apple’s products like the iPhone to be priced significantly higher here in the United States.
Now there is news that the Trump administration has put a delay on electronics tariffs. This leaves more room for negotiation and may allow better trade and tariff policies for big chip buyers like Apple. Still, this is all temporary as of now and may change in an instant. We have all seen good news turn to bad news for stocks recently. To simply say “it has been quite difficult to keep up with” would be an understatement.
Wall Street is coming to the defense of Apple stockholders with multiple positive analyst research calls in defense of the iPhone-maker. Just understand these upgrades and positive research calls all have some caveats beyond traditional upgrades and reiterations. And this situation has ramifications for any and all technology and mobility companies that import goods for sale into the prized U.S. market.
Shares of Apple bottomed out under $175 on April 8 (2025) when the maximum effect of tariffs went into place. Now the stock is back up to $203 on April 14 after a prior close of $198.15. Keep in mind that this was a $220 stock just as March came to an end and it was a $240 stock at the end of February.
Apple CEO Tim Cook is known to have a special relationship with President Trump and he has been able to navigate through rough waters as a result of him previously meeting with Trump during his first term. Whether this all holds up in Apple’s favor in the coming months and through 2028 remains to be seen. What we do know is that Apple’s stock was battered and bruised, and currently it is on the mend.
BofA Securities analyst Wamsi Mohan estimates that the revised China/India tariffs are now a $0.41 headwind to earnings per share, but this assumes no pricing or demand degradation. Mohan points out that the revised/current tariffs of 20% for China and 0% for India are only temporary and the tariffs await upcoming sectoral tariff announcements. BofA has decided to reiterate its Buy rating and is sticking with its $250 price objective based on the notion that Apple is well positioned to navigate the tariff headwinds.
The big caveat for the tariff negotiations is that BofA expects the 1-month to 2-month comment period to give room for negotiations that can hopefully reduce the tariff burden on the chip sector. When you see words like “expects’ and “hopefully” mixed in with U.S. and China relations it should be assumed that anything is possible — and major changes can happen overnight.
On this same day a call from KeyBanc Capital Markets was issued upgrading the stock to Sector Weight from Underweight. Citigroup reiterated its Buy rating and its $245 price target on Apple as well. And a firm named Melius Research maintained its Buy rating and its $226 price target on Apple.
UBS maintains that tariff exemptions from the 145% rate for smartphones, PCs, servers and other goods provides relief for Apple. The firm had previously benchmarked up to 30% of Apple’s earnings at-risk due to Apple’s supply chain being so heavily reliant upon China despite efforts to diversify its supply chain over the last decade. Most importantly, UBS is now expecting no real price hikes from Apple for the time being despite the risks that renewed tariffs would create demand destruction.
As you can see, all of these fresh analyst calls are assuming that the worst-case scenario for Apple is no longer the base-case scenario. But none of the analyst calls come with any assurances.
Just last week an upgrade was seen out of Jefferies. This rating went only to a Hold from Underperform. And this upgrade had a cautious caveat — the Jefferies price target was cut to $167.88 from $202.33 (to reflect the sharp drop in the stock).
And as a reminder, if this is impacting Apple it is also impacting all rivals in the compute and mobility space that import products and components from China and Asia into the United States.
DISCLAIMER — Oggonomics maintains no formal rating nor any price targets of its own regarding Apple. The commentary and opinions offered are from reports issued by the firms named above. Oggonomics also always urges is readers to never use a single analyst call (nor a group of reactive calls simultaneously) as the sole basis to buy or sell a stock. Sometimes analysts get it wrong, and sometimes the underlying fundamentals can change in an instant.
