UBS Maintains Hold Rating on Apple Inc. (AAPL) with $236 Price Target Amid Muted Demand for Apple Intelligence

We recently compiled a list of the 10 Trending AI Stocks Making Waves Today. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) stands against the other trending AI stocks that are making waves today.

Is artificial intelligence a tool for the rich countries and the wealthy? Even if it is, Chinese President Xi Jinping warns that it shouldn’t be. At the Group of 20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Xi noted that AI shouldn’t be a game of the affluent, calling on more international governance and cooperation on the matter. In a separate meeting in Peru, Xi and Joe Biden also agreed that human beings, and not artificial intelligence, should be making decisions about nuclear weapons, as reported by The White House.

READ NOW: 10 AI News Stories You Can’t Miss and 15 AI News Making Waves Right Now 

The call for equitable AI development and responsible decision-making underscores the growing global focus on AI’s impact, and all the latest developments being made in the AI realm. As the global race to advance AI accelerates, one country striving to secure its position in this competitive landscape is Japan. The country is reportedly readying a $65-billion push in microchips and artificial intelligence, as revealed by Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba this month. The move comes amid the country’s efforts to reclaim its status as a global tech leader.

News like these underscores how artificial intelligence continues to be a dominant theme in the business world. A Cisco 2024 AI Readiness Report reveals how companies around the world realize that the momentum for AI deployment is building fast, pulling up immense pressure on them in the process. However, only 13% of companies are ready to leverage AI and AI-powered technologies to their full potential. This is a 1-point decline from last year. Even though organizations are doing their best to leverage AI, the ROI is nowhere in the picture for many.

According to an AI consultant Rider Harris, some major reasons for companies failing to reap ROIs are that they probably invested in a bad tool, they weren’t trained enough (or at all), there’s a lack of excitement on the fear that AI may take their job away, or there may even be a lack of resources for employees to adequately make use of or navigate those tools.  This is why focusing on aspects such as training employees, getting them excited about the AI tool, and providing adequate resources can go a long way.

For this article, we selected AI stocks by going through news articles, stock analysis, and press releases. These stocks are also popular among hedge funds.

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 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points (see more details here).

A wide view of an Apple store, showing the range of products the company offers.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 158

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) designs, manufactures, and markets smartphones, tablets, PCs, wearables, and accessories worldwide. It recently released Apple Intelligence, the company’s personal intelligence system.

UBS analyst David Vogt maintained a Hold rating on Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and set a price target of $236.00. According to the firm, the 78M sell-in unit estimate for the December quarter has limited upside. Data suggests that their demand is muted despite customers familiarizing themselves with Apple Intelligence.

Overall AAPL ranks 1st on our list of the trending AI stocks that are making waves today. 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 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: 8 Best Wide Moat Stocks to Buy Now and 30 Most Important AI Stocks According to BlackRock.

 

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