Can Apple (AAPL) Turn It Around? CNBC 'Halftime Report' Panel Debates

CNBC's 'Fast Money Halftime Report' debated whether or not Apple (AAPL) is a buy after Barclays (BCS) cut its price target on the subject.
By Giovanni Bruno ,

NEW YORK (TheStreet) --Apple  (AAPL) - Get Report stock is down 24% since its previous high in May 2015, making it the worst laggard stock on the Dow during that time. Additionally, Barclays (BCS) has cut its price target on Apple to $115 form $125, CNBC's Scott Wapner reported today on "Fast Money Halftime Report."

With questions surrounding one of the world's largest companies, the "Fast Money Halftime Report" panel debated if the stock can turn around.

"I think so, you have earnings coming out, you have iPhone 7, there's talk about them building huge data centers, you obviously have a nice yield, and now it's the time to take a shot," John Spallanzani, Chief Macro Strategist at GFI Group, said.

The questions of whether Apple should focus its sights more on the television side of the business was also debated.

"There are going to be some TV announcements coming soon. They want to talk TV a lot more than they did last year," Josh Brown, CEO and co-founder of Ritholtz Management said, insinuating this could be the move that brings them out of the dark.

"It's not a good thing they're talking TV, because their TV's been disappointing. To me it's a negative that they're talking TV. That being said, if they buy Netflix then I think the stock is very interesting," Stephen Weiss, managing partner, Short Hills Capital Partners, argued.

However, Weiss immediately received some push-back on his plea for Apple to buy Netflix (NFLX), from Jim Lebenthal, chief investment officer at Lebenthal Asset Management.

"I hope they don't buy Netflix, when you look at management of any company that your invested in you want to see how they allocate capital and that would be a terrible capital allocation decision," Lebenthal said.

In terms of what strategies, the tech titan can employ in order to start seeing some improvement, Weiss and Lebenthal weighed in.

"You're not as incentivized to go out and buy a new iPhone, there needs to be massive new product features," Weiss said.

"There's one positive, the last 3-4 months has had negative data from China, that can actually turn around and get positive, it's hard to see it getting much more negative than that, Lebenthal explained.

Shares of Apple are trading higher 0.09% to $98.89 Friday afternoon. 

(Apple is a holding in Jim Cramer's Action Alerts PLUS Charitable Trust Portfolio. Want to be alerted before Cramer buys or sells AAPL? Learn more now.)

Separately, TheStreet Ratings rates Apple as a "Buy" with a ratings score of "B." This is driven by several positive factors, which TheStreet Ratings believes should have a greater impact than any weaknesses, and should give investors a better performance opportunity than most stocks we cover. 

The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures, notable return on equity and expanding profit margins. TheStreet Ratings feels its strengths outweigh the fact that the company shows weak operating cash flow.

TheStreet Ratings objectively rated this stock according to its "risk-adjusted" total return prospect over a 12-month investment horizon. Not based on the news in any given day, the rating may differ from Jim Cramer's view or that of this articles's author. 

You can view the full analysis from the report here: AAPL

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