Apple Gets A Target Stock Price Of $345

Lots of interesting investor reports being issued today but the one that caught my eye the most was Oppenheimer's statement to investors that they have set a target stock price for AAPL at $345.  Say what you want about Apple but the fact remains that they are still the darling of the financial community.

Oppenheimer's analysts have raised the target stock price from $330 citing strong expectations of iPhone 4 sales, the anticipation of new carriers, continued growth of Mac sales and greater than anticipated iPad sales.  Our own forecasts would agree with Oppenheimer's expectations of strong sales of Apple hardware.   I would add that I believe the sales of iPads will be slightly higher than people are expecting.  Right now expectations of iPad sales for the third quarter are conservatively in the 5 million range and  I feel the third quarter shipments will be in the 6-7 million range.  Apple holds their Q3 earnings call on Oct 18th and I will write a full analysis of the numbers after the call.

Yair Reiner is quoted in the report saying:

"Apple's stock has performed admirably this year (up 37% YTD)," he writes, "but it has significantly lagged the improvement in the company's fundamentals, which have driven FY10 consensus EPS estimates up by 75% since January."

Apple is continuing to beat expectations while maintaining profit margin.   Even with the rise of other market threats Apple continues to see overall growth.  I am interested to see iPod sales for the third quarter to see whether the iPhone or the iPad have eaten into the iPod business.

[Source Forbes]