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Apple Is Showing Signs Of Cratering This Month: Is One Wall Street Pro’s Expectation of 33% Gains Persuasive?

By Alex Sirois Published Aug 12, 11:07AM EDT

Quick Read

Apple slid 10% post-earnings to $305 despite a revenue beat, as memory pricing warnings and a tariff refund controversy spooked investors.
Wedbush's Dan Ives targets $400 for AAPL, representing 31% upside, while MSFT rallied 31% this month, making Apple the lone mega-cap laggard.
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Apple Is Showing Signs Of Cratering This Month: Is One Wall Street Pro’s Expectation of 33% Gains Persuasive? — © Nikada / Getty Images

Apple currently trades at $304.91, while the average Wall Street price target sits at $322.82, leaving a modest 5.9% gap between the market and the consensus.

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL | AAPL Price Prediction) is the world’s most valuable company by market cap. The consensus target implies only a small climb from here, but Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives has staked out a Street-high $400 price target, an Outperform-rated call that pencils out to roughly 31% upside from the current price. iPhone growth just re-accelerated, Services keeps compounding, and yet the stock has slipped over the past month while the S&P 500 has held its ground.

A Post-Earnings Fade That Nobody Expected

The drop began the moment Apple reported. Shares closed at $340 the day of the July 30, 2026 release, then bled steadily lower to today’s $304.91, a 10.3% slide despite a headline beat.

The earnings report looked strong underneath. Revenue rose 16.4% year over year to $109.4 billion, iPhone revenue jumped 22%, and EPS of $2.02 topped the $1.89 estimate. But investors zeroed in on softer parts. Roughly $0.11 of that EPS came from one-time tariff refunds, and management flagged a “100-year flood” in memory pricing that will pressure gross margin into September.

Sentiment cracked from there. Supply-chain reporting around Chinese memory supplier CXMT rejecting Apple’s price cut demands, plus a rush of retail put buying, turned a modest fade into full sector-level underperformance. Since earnings, AAPL has lagged both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq 100 by a meaningful margin.

Why Dan Ives Sees a $95 Gap to Close

Analysts largely shrugged off the pullback, and the bull case has widened. Wedbush’s Dan Ives calls Apple a “sleeping tech giant” whose 2.5+ billion active device base is about to enter a multi-year AI-driven upgrade cycle, catalyzed by the newly unveiled Siri AI shown at WWDC26. His $400 target rests on two pillars: a hardware refresh wave and high-margin AI subscription monetization layered onto Services.

The setup looks credible. Services revenue reached $30.7 billion at a 75.6% gross margin, paid subscriptions crossed 1.5 billion, and Tim Cook telegraphed “upgrade possibilities on iCloud+” tied to Siri AI. Guidance for the September quarter calls for 9% to 11% revenue growth with iPhone in the mid-teens.

Of 46 analysts covering the name, 28 rate it Buy or Strong Buy, 14 Hold, and 4 Sell or Strong Sell. Recent action has been reiterations rather than downgrades, with the memory-cost issue framed as transitory margin drag rather than structural break.

How Apple Stacks Against the Mega-Cap Field

Apple fell alone while most of Big Tech held firm or rallied.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) trades at $503.81 after ripping 30.83% in the past month on Azure’s $100 billion milestone. Its consensus target of $563.84 implies 11.9% upside, with 54 of 57 analysts rating it Buy or Strong Buy and revisions trending higher.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) sits at $343.80, off 8.96% in the last week on hyperscaler capex fears. Analysts target $428.04, or 24.5% upside, with 58 of 64 covering analysts rating it Buy or Strong Buy after a blowout Q2.

Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) changes hands at $272.27, up 10.98% over the past month. The consensus $324.94 target implies 19.3% upside, with 59 of 62 analysts rating it Buy or Strong Buy after AWS’s 37% growth print.

Across the group, the largest analyst-implied upside on a consensus basis sits with Alphabet at roughly 25%. Apple’s 5.9% consensus gap looks small next to its peers, but Ives’ outlier $400 call would put it at the top of the pack.

Keep an Eye on the Stock

The stock is down 3.22% over the past month, versus a 2.07% gain for the S&P 500 (SPY) over the same window. Year-to-date, Apple has returned 12.47%, essentially matching the S&P 500’s 13%.

The consensus $322.82 target implies roughly 5.9% upside from $304.91, drawn from 46 analysts. Prediction markets on Polymarket assign only 0.6% probability to Apple hitting $384 in August, a stark contrast to Ives’ 31% stretch target.

Where I Land on Apple at $305

The bull case holds if the Siri AI upgrade cycle materializes on Ives’ timeline and Services monetization compounds through paid AI tiers. Cook already teased iCloud+ premium pricing, iPhone growth is accelerating at 22%, and the installed base is unmatched. That path plausibly gets you toward $400. But I’d stay away if memory costs stay elevated.

The risk case is memory costs staying in flood mode into 2027 and the tariff refund tailwind reversing. At 36x trailing earnings, Apple already prices in significant AI optionality that has not yet shown up in the numbers. The setup looks cautiously constructive. The consensus 5.9% cushion is thin, but the Ives thesis has real teeth if Siri AI actually drives an upgrade wave.

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About the Author Alex Sirois →

Alex Sirois is a financial writer with experience spanning both retail and institutional investing. He has written for InvestorPlace and held roles at BNY Mellon and Bernstein, giving him a perspective that bridges Main Street portfolios and Wall Street analysis.

Alex holds an MBA from George Washington University and has built his career across multiple industries, including e-commerce, education, and translation — a breadth of experience that informs how he breaks down complex financial topics for everyday investors. His writing is conversational, actionable, and grounded in long-term, buy-and-hold investing principles.

At 247 Wall St., Alex focuses on delivering analysis that is both accessible and useful, with a clear emphasis on helping readers make more informed decisions with their money.