Apple AAPL) Bull Says iPhone Will Be a 'Great' AI Catalyst - 'We Feel Stock is Very Attractive'

Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) is one of the Top 10 Stocks Wall Street is Buzzing About These Days.

Kevin Simpson, Capital Wealth Planning founder and CIO, said in a recent program on CNBC that he’s hopeful about Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s shares despite uncertainties around the company’s AI strategy.

“I don’t want to pretend to know what they’re going to do when it comes to artificial intelligence or Apple AI, but I do believe that they’re going to do something. I feel like this device (iPhone) will be a great catalyst for us to be able to interface with artificial intelligence. How they decide to do it, I don’t know. But remember, we’re an active portfolio. So I sold out of the position, Frank, just to go back in time back in December. So we liquidated Apple at 247 and a half. At that point, we thought it was a little bit too pricey at 250. At 200, we feel the stock is very attractive and it’s a longer-term investment. We know we’re going to get paid while we wait.”

Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) is desperately in need of new catalysts. The company’s revenue in China fell 8% in fiscal year 2024, following a 2% decline the previous year. The Chinese market accounts for about 15% of Apple’s total revenue, so this downtrend cannot be ignored.

Investors had hopes from the Wearables, Home, and Accessories segment, but so far, its performance has been weak. Vision Pro faces tough competition from Meta’s $500 Quest and the more affordable Quest 3S, making it hard to justify its $3,500 price tag. The failure of Apple’s HomePod, unable to compete with Amazon’s and Google’s lower-priced offerings, further highlights the challenges in this market.

Apple’s iPhone 16 has not shown promising growth prospects yet, and investors are still in a wait-and-see mode on the AI platform.

Wedgewood Partners stated the following regarding Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) in its second quarter 2025 investor letter:

“Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) detracted from performance after investors became impatient with the Company’s AI development efforts – particularly the promises made but promises not kept with Siri integrated with AI. It is much too early to conclude that Apple cannot succeed in developing a compelling AI-assisted offering for its device and software ecosystem. For decades, Apple’s proprietary hardware and software have enabled the Company to consistently provide unmatched user experiences that consumers increasingly rely on a daily basis. Whether Apple – with their unmatched installed base of over a billion user devices – develops its AI with eager partners or over a slightly longer timeframe than what investors hoped for does not change the Company’s core competitive differentiation that comes from years of integrating custom silicon with internal operating system software.”

While we acknowledge the potential of AAPL as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and have limited downside risk. If you are looking for an extremely cheap AI stock that is also a major beneficiary of Trump tariffs and onshoring, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock.

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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.