Here are some things going on this morning in your world of tech:
Shares of Apple (AAPL) are up $7.31, or 1.5%, at $482.29as the Street continues to contemplate the prospect of enhanced payouts raised by David Einhorn’s protests last week.
On Sunday, ISI Group’s Brian Marshall reiterated a Strong Buy rating on the stock and a $600 price target, saying he’d spoken with AAPL’s CFO (Peter Oppenheimer) this past Friday and found the conversation helpful “we are starting to field calls from “smart money” investors who are building positions in AAPL at current levels based on the belief that: 1) AAPL has *already* made the transition to a “value play” (from a growth story), and 2) a favorable capital allocation update will be the next catalyst for share.”
Jim Stewart was on CNBC this morning to talk about the failure of the Apple bulls, as laid out in his “Common Sense” column from Friday in The New York Times. “I went back to look at the absolute peak, it was overwhelmingly Buy and Strong Buy. I was seeing the same old herd instinct all over again. There’s this trading desk problem, if you put out a buy, everyone can go buy and generate selling commissions.”
In case you missed it, Bloomberg’s Peter Burrows writes that the drop in Apple’s profit margin to 39% from 45% a year earlier means that “Unless Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook unveils a revolutionary new gadget with premium pricing, Apple shares will remain under pressure.” Cook is scheduled to speak at the Goldman Sachs tech conference, tomorrow afternoon, at 7:15 am, Pacific Time. You can listen to the audio webcast of the event here.
Also speaking of Apple, The Times’s Nick Bilton reported over the weekend that Apple is “experimenting with wristwatch-like devices made of curved glass,” citing multiple unnamed sources.
Shares of Google (GOOG) are down $11.13, or 1.4%, at $774.24 following the disclosure late Friday that chairman and former CEO Eric Schmidt plans to sell off up to 3.2 million of his 7.6 million shares, via a trading plan set up last fall. Schmidt’s holdings represent 2.3% of the total shares outstanding.
Shares of Dell (DELL) are up 3cents at $13.66 this morning following a piece over the weekend by my colleague Andrew Bary in Barron’s print saying Michael Dell‘s proposed leverage buyout may die without the backing of Southeastern Asset Management, the 7% holder who came out agains the deal on Friday. In response, Dell this morning filed an additional proxy statement on the deal, emphasizing that “In addition, and importantly, the go-shop process provides stockholders an opportunity to determine if there are alternatives that are superior to the present offer.”
Stifel Nicolaus’s Aaron Rakers reiterates a Hold rating on Dell shares this morning, writing that his own analysis of the company on a “sum of the parts” basis suggests the stock is worth $16 to $17, not the $24 that Southeastern comes up with. Writes Rakers, “While we believe Southeastern has some valid points, especially as it relates to the company�s acquisitions and what we believe to have thus far been net-successful business model transformation moves by Dell, we believe an analysis must also consider forward looking inputs.”
“We believe an analysis of PC segment margin trends relative to the likes of Lenovo, Acer, Toshiba, and others running at ~1%-2% operating margins versus Dell�s ~4%-5% model (our estimate) needs to be considered.”
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