Gene Munster Is Buying Apple Before Earnings, Says Most Bad News 'Priced In'

• The share price of Apple Inc. AAPL has declined 26.35 percent over the past six months, falling to a low of $96.30 on January 21.
• Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster has maintained an Overweight rating on the company, with a price target of $179.
• Munster believes that the stock could see more than 50 percent upside from the current levels with the iPhone 7 launch in September.

Analyst Gene Munster is a buyer of Apple’s stock before the company announces its quarterly results on January 26 as well as through February, “based on a belief that over the next 6 months the stock will react similarly to past number change cycles (iPhone 5 and 6), and experience P/E multiple expansion.”

Munster believes that the stock valuation is attractive, following the pullback over the past two months. The pullback was due to concerns regarding supply reductions, as well as the macro market decline which led to the shares trading at historically low P/E levels.

Although macros issues, such as China’s economy/currency, declining oil prices and instability in the EU, remain wild cards, Munster mentioned that the company specific setup for the stock continued to be favorable.

“We believe the similarities between the situation in April 2013 and today are stark given a relatively disappointing iPhone 6S cycle, the wide expectation for down y/y iPhone units in Mar-16, and the expectation for multiple single digit growth quarters looking forward,” according to the Piper Jaffray report.

Munster noted that the similarity in the setup lends confidence that most of the company specific bad news was already priced into the stock.

In addition, the stock multiples have expanded between March and September for three of the past four years, except for the months leading up to the iPhone 6S launch in 2015.