UPDATE: Susquehanna International Group Upgrades Apple to Positive, Raises PT on Multiple Catalysts Ahead

In a report published Tuesday, Susquehanna International Group analyst Chris Caso upgraded the rating on Apple AAPL from Neutral to Positive, and raised the price target from $440.00 to $625.00. In the report, Susquehanna International Group noted, “When the facts change, we change our minds – and the facts over the weekend indicated that AAPL's new phone lineup was more successful than we and many others had expected, even after accounting for the greater worldwide distribution at launch. Importantly, AAPL didn't need to sacrifice margins in order to achieve this success, the current shortages provide a healthy backlog entering C4Q, and we think a China Mobile launch still lies ahead. AAPL's risk going forward is that phone demand slows after the initial launch; it's a risk we're willing to take since we would be buyers of any weakness ahead of next year's iPhone 6 cycle. Our thesis all along is that we have wanted to own AAPL for what we believed to be a stronger iPhone 6 cycle. Now that the risk of a disappointing iPhone 5s launch is greatly reduced, and the stock up only moderately since our May initiation, we can't come up with a good reason to remain on the sidelines. Upgrading to Positive, increasing price target to $625.” Apple closed on Monday at $490.64.