HH Should Apple Be This Cheap?

There is little question that Apple (AAPL) stock is cheap.

The stock’s earnings yield is 16.8%, which is in the 95th percentile of all profitable companies.

The stock’s free cash flow yield is 14.1%, in the 91st percentile of all cash flow positive firms.

More traditional? Fine. The P/E ratio is 10.3, less than half of the S&P 500’s ratio of 23.8. Back the net cash on hand (nearly $200 billion – with a ‘B’) out of the market cap and that ratio falls to 8.0.

These are valuations you usually see with a firm in deep decline, financial trouble, scandal, or all of the above.

Apple doesn’t really fit any of those descriptions. While there are reasonable concerns around the stock, none of them seem to warrant such an incredibly low valuation, particularly given all of the firm’s competitive advantages and potential avenues for growth. Let’s take a look at all of these and then try to come up with a decent price for the stock.

The Risks in Apple

The risks in this company are quite well-known.

Apple is increasingly reliant on one product, the iPhone, which accounted for 2/3rds of sales in fiscal 2015. However, many feel the growth trajectory for iPhone has flat-lined. They say that the iPhone 6 – with its bigger screens – milked the last really major catalyst for upgrades. China and India represent growth potential, but China sales fell over 20% last quarter, Apple may be too high-priced for India, and in any case, the move away from a subsidy model in the U.S. may lengthen upgrade cycles and suppress sales in its most important market. iPhone sales are down 8% in the first 6 months of fiscal 2016, and are expected to decline over 10% for the entire year. Not inspiring.

Worse, Apple’s other product lines are also struggling. After exploding out of the gate and at one point (in 2012) accounting for over half of the firm’s revenue, iPad has declined precipitously, and now represents less than 10% of sales. In the first 6 months of this year, iPad revenue is down 20%. Is it possible the tablet craze was just a fad? Possibly…