Apple shares hit record highs after AI announcement

Shares of Apple ( AAPL ) rose 6% on Tuesday, hitting an intraday record, as investors digested the announcement of its artificial intelligence platform Apple Intelligence.

After falling during and after the company’s WWDC conference on Monday, the stock rose as some Wall Street analysts cheered the company’s announcements.

“When you see the signal above the noise, you realize it’s an unprecedented ability that Apple will introduce and integrate AI into everyday life,” Gil Lauria, managing director at DA Davidson, told Yahoo Finance.

After Monday’s event, Luria upgraded Apple from “neutral” to “buy” and raised his price target to $230 from $200.

Apple on Monday announced “Apple Intelligence,” its long-awaited foray into generative artificial intelligence. The platform will integrate with all of the company’s hardware and software products, from iPhone and Mac to Mail, Messages and Photos, the company said. Apple Intelligence will be available for iPhone 15 Pro, iPad and Mac devices with Apple’s M1 series chipsets later this fall.

Key features at launch include updates to Siri, which will now be able to do things like analyze the phone for addresses sent in messages or use voice instructions to find photos in the phone’s photo library. Apple has released new software updates for iPhones, watches and computer products.

“Our experience with consumer surveys of previous generation iPhone launches shows us that the hardware upgrade cycle is more likely to be based on a combination of application feature upgrades, which, taken together, will provide reasons to upgrade over the next few years. “” JPMorgan senior analyst Samik Chatterjee wrote in a note to clients on Monday.

“Releasing AI features to Mac, iPad and iPhone will support the upgrade cycle across devices,” he added.

The announcements cap a month of excitement for the stock, which has already seen some news rumours, including a partnership with ChatGPT operator OpenAI.

After being briefly overtaken by Nvidia ( NVDA ), the iPhone maker’s stock is now once again the world’s second-largest company (behind Microsoft) with a market capitalization of more than $3.1 trillion.

Apple shares have risen more than 15% in the past two months, after a slowdown at the start of the year on fears of slowing iPhone demand. Analysts like Luria and Chatterjee believe the next iPhone upgrade cycle may be coming, as the new AI features won’t be available until the iPhone 15 Pro and later generations.

The story goes on

“As people buy new phones this holiday season, they’ll see this great feature,” Lauria said. “They will show it to their friends and family, and the product upgrade cycle will play out over the next few months and quarters.”

That should be an important catalyst for further development in the stock, Lauria said.

“The stock was flat because Apple didn’t have sales growth,” Lauria said. “We now believe this will accelerate Apple’s overall growth from low single digits to mid single digits and possibly high single digits over the next one to two years. This could boost Apple’s share.”

Josh Schaeffer is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow him in X @_joshschafer.

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