Apple analyst sentiment hits five-year low after two downgrades

Apple was hit with a pair of downgrades on Thursday (Sep 11), in the latest sign of caution towards the iPhone maker, which has sharply underperformed its large-cap tech peers this year.

With the downgrades, Apple’s recommendation consensus – a proxy for the ratio of buy, hold, and sell ratings – has dropped to 3.9 out of 5, its lowest since early 2020, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Just 55 per cent of the analysts tracked by Bloomberg recommend buying the stock, which is extremely low among megacaps. Nvidia, Microsoft, and Amazon.com, for instance, all have ratios above 90 per cent.

DA Davidson cut the stock to neutral from buy, a move that follows product announcements earlier this week that failed to assuage concerns about the company’s position with artificial intelligence.

“While we were initially excited about the prospects of Apple’s role in the AI ecosystem and potential major upgrade cycle, it has become clear to us that neither of those are likely to come to fruition in the near-term,” wrote analyst Gil Luria.

The new products, including a thinner iPhone, “left us uninspired,” he wrote. “Until they can redefine their current products or develop compelling new ones, we believe growth will remain constrained under the status quo.”

Shares rose 0.6 per cent on Thursday. The stock is coming off a four-day drop of 5.4 per cent, and it remains down 9 per cent for 2025, compared with a gain of 14 per cent for the Nasdaq 100 Index.

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Despite the year-to-date weakness, Apple has jumped more than 30 per cent off an April low, amid easing concerns about the impact of tariffs.

That rally is the reason for the second downgrade, to reduce from neutral at Phillip Securities, according to analyst Helena Wang. She added that the firm maintains “a cautious outlook,” in part because it has “no significant AI innovation to help with persistent weakness in products and the China market.” BLOOMBERG