Is Apple Shedding Investors to Prepare for New Growth?

By Roger Baettig | February 05 2013 11:57 AM

Stock specialist Cody Willard believes Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) is in the process of shaking out opportunistic investors who only bought in on the rampant ultra optimism of last year. While the stock has shed almost 37 percent of its value since reaching a record high in September, Willard is certain good times are set to return and the continuing selloff won’t hurt the company in the long run.

Reuters

An Apple store on Fifth Avenue in New York City.

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“I think the retail shareholders and mindless long money managers just got complacent with Apple and that we’re still shaking the people who bought Apple in 2012 out and that could take a while longer,” Willard wrote in MarketWatch.

According to Willard, Apple can, and will, deliver nearly $60 in earnings this year and that the market will pay ten times those earnings, plus net cash. That would put the stock back up to near $750 or $800 levels.

“The multiple will be supported by the cash, the yield, and the giant earnings that will continue for the next few quarters, so I still think it goes higher eventually,” he wrote. And going further, he expects Apple to reach the $1,000 level sometime in 2014 or 2015.

“There are no sure things though, and that’s why we diversify, and clearly our other longs have been huge winners of late even as Apple’s own shareholders have relentlessly sold the stock down here that they loved at $700,” he wrote.

However, Willard added he was not relying on Apple stock calls, but on common stock. “I thought that last month was a good time to be buying Apple calls and I’m still choking on them,” he wrote. “I’ve sold down almost all my call options of any value and am letting my common stock do the work for me for now.”