Later Thursday morning, we will sell 55 shares of Apple at roughly $258.62. Following the trades, Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust will own 800 shares of AAPL, decreasing its weighting to 5.76% from 6.14%. First off, we haven’t changed our view on Apple and continue to believe that the stock should be owned for the long term, not traded. But with shares now exceeding a 6% weighting in our portfolio, we are reminded that discipline trumps conviction – an important part of our modus operandi that we actually started the year off discussing . It’s fitting that we should close out a great 2024 with exactly that in mind. Our conviction on Apple is still strong, and analysts at Wedbush Securities on Thursday reminded us why that is the case. “Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither will Apple’s AI strategy but the seeds of that strategy with Apple Intelligence are now forming and will transform the Apple consumer growth narrative over the coming years,” Wedbush analysts wrote in the note, while also raising their price target to $325 a share from $300. Wedbush also said that the “hundreds of apps in development around Apple Intelligence” should help create new “multi-billion” dollar revenue stream for the company’s high-margin services segment. That will represent another avenue of growth, “along with catalyzing iPhone upgrades across the board over the next 12 to 18 months,” the firm wrote. We certainly agree with the view that Apple Intelligence can continue to drive the stock higher over time. However, we also want to take advantage of the strong run in Apple shares into year-end to book some profits and right-size the position. We’re reiterating our 2 rating on Apple, which is our hold equivalent . At the same time, we’re increasing our price target on the stock to $280 a share from $250 as we look to 2025. While shares are already trading at premium versus historical levels, we think further upside will be realized as more Apple Intelligence features come to market and the creativity and productivity gap between AI-capable devices and non-AI-capable devices widens, leading to a shorter upgrade cycle over the coming years a nd upward revisions to analyst estimates. (Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust is long AAPL. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust’s portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.
