Jim Cramer Says No One Thinks Apple (AAPL) Is Having 'Great' Sell-Through

We recently published a list of 10 Stocks Everyone’s Talking About as Trump Softens His Tone on China. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) stands against other stocks everyone’s talking about as Trump softens his tone on China.

Investors are desperately looking for signs of a market bottom after going through massive volatility and losses. 3Fourteen Research’s Warren Pies said in a latest program on CNBC that we are getting “close” to a market bottom based on his technical analysis. The analyst talked about key indicators he’s looking for:

“I do think that the White House is trying to deescalate the situation. One of the markers we’ve seen is that Peter Navarro hasn’t been on TV since April 13th, and that’s corresponding with this equity rally. Setting that aside, though, I think that a bottom, a confirmed bottom, has two components. You need to see washed out sentiment and positioning. We measured that in a number of ways: we measured it in inverse ETFs for retail, we measured it for vault targeting for institutions, and CTAs for trend followers. Across all those metrics, sentiment is depressed. That’s phase one of a bottom. Then, you look for technical confirmation. Philosophically, we’re always going to be late because of that ordering.”

READ ALSO 7 Best Stocks to Buy For Long-Term and 8 Cheap Jim Cramer Stocks to Invest In

For this article, we picked 10 stocks investors are currently focusing on. With each stock, we have mentioned the number of hedge fund investors. Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (see more details here).

Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL)

Number of Hedge Funds Investors: 158

Jim Cramer in a latest program on CNBC talked about a bearish report on Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL), mentioning a decline in its sell-throughs.

“More negative stuff about Apple: UBS is talking about sell-through drops of 1% year-over-year in February, which would be very negative. And you know what? I just read these things and it just kind of makes my eyes glaze over, but every time that they happen, they happen after a day where Apple goes up and then Apple gives back its gains, and that’s what you’re seeing today. I don’t think anyone thinks Apple’s having great sell-through.”

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.

Columbia Seligman Global Technology Fund stated the following regarding Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:

“The fund maintained a position in Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) throughout the quarter through the release of the company’s new iPhone 16 in September. Company leaders were excited about the release of the new model, as this is the first model that will feature enhanced AI capabilities through the Apple Intelligence features. Sales for the first few weeks in October and November trailed behind year over year sales from the iPhone 15, as availability of Apple Intelligence was not compatible with all iPhone models. Apple announced a partnership with OpenAI that has allowed the integration of ChatGPT into the Apple ecosystem, separate from the core Apple Intelligence features. This partnership highlights continued progress from Apple to introduce AI capabilities into its products and we expect the iPhone 17 to have even more expansive AI capabilities, increasing potential demand for the new model that is on track to be released in 2025.”

Overall, AAPL ranks 6th on our list of best mid cap growth stocks. While we acknowledge the potential of AAPL, our conviction lies in the belief that under the radar AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than AAPL but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.

READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires.

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