AAPL
Apple’s new bull camp just got louder
Rothschild Redburn turned more optimistic on Apple, upgrading the stock to Buy from Neutral and blasting its price target up to $400 from $260. That’s not a gentle nudge — that’s an analyst basically saying, “Hey, maybe this spaceship still has fuel.”
The thesis leans on Apple’s usual superpowers: a giant installed base, sticky hardware, custom chips, and a services business that keeps printing nicer margins than the iPhone aisle. James Cordwell even put numbers on the vibe, saying Apple’s services arm grows much faster than product sales and carries roughly 75% gross margins. Translation: the less hardware you sell, the better the economics can look.
The catch: AI is the plot twist
Of course, this isn’t a fairy tale. Cordwell also flagged a real risk: closed AI models from names like OpenAI and Anthropic could change how people search, discover apps, and interact with software — which could hit Apple right where it likes the profit margins most. That’s the kind of threat that sounds abstract until you realize it could mess with the company’s most valuable business.
Still, he thinks Apple has a shot to rebuild Apple Intelligence using increasingly capable open-source AI models, and he’s betting on longer-term iPhone growth plus a move into premium foldables like the iPhone Ultra. Big picture: Wall Street may still be arguing about AI and charts, but at least one shop just told investors Apple’s still a heavyweight, not a has-been.