NEW YORK —
He calls himself an “Apple fanboy,” owns four iPads and two iPhones, follows the company obsessively and predicts it will keep turning blockbuster profits. But whether you should own the stock is another matter.
He says it’s just not worth it.
No one is sure why Apple’s stock finally stopped rising last week, but you might point a finger at Walter Piecyk, a veteran analyst who apparently has uncanny timing when it comes to issuing critical reports on hot companies.
After Piecyk published a bold attack on Apple last week, the stock fell five days in a row, wiping out 10 percent of the company’s market value, or $53 billion — about what the most optimistic projections say Facebook is worth.
As if anticipating the drop, and perhaps the hate mail, Piecyk listed a dozen Apple products he owns, and why his family loves them, in his report April 9. He titled the section: “Am I an Apple Hater?”
“It’s not about the products,” Piecyk said in an interview Tuesday, as the stock finally broke its losing streak. “It’s whether the stock discounts all the risks.”
Piecyk thinks one big risk is that Apple could have a harder time selling iPhones if phone companies stop subsidizing most of the $600 purchase price for customers who trade in old models, as they have in the past.
He noted that AT&T has stopped paying for upgrades of iPhones for customers in two-year contracts. Piecyk expects Apple to sell 27.5 million iPhones this quarter, down from 33 million the three months before.
But the details of his argument seemed to matter less than his decision to remove Apple from his list of “buy” stocks.
