Analysts Talk Up Apple & Friends Ahead of WWDC (AAPL, IBM, OVTI)

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) remains the darling of Wall Street as one of the few powerhouses still managing to grow. We have seen two solid research calls showing positive expectations ahead of its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC).  The company has sent out invites to a keynote on Monday, June 11, that will kick off its 2012 WWDC in San Francisco.

Stern Agee’s Shaw Wu reiterated his Buy rating and the price target is $780.00. While a lot of attention has been around the potential for new Macs, Wu believes Apple’s bigger news will be about its new iOS and OS X software features.

International Business Machines Co. (NYSE: IBM) also got an honorable mention here.  Wu said, “Tim Cook & Co. will headline a keynote on Monday, June 11, to kick off its annual WWDC event in San Francisco. While a lot of anticipation and focus has been on potential new hardware announcements including new Macs, we believe the bigger news could be around new iOS and OS X software features including enhanced Maps and photosharing. AAPL continues to be one of our top picks along with IBM.”

The well-known analyst Gene Muster of Piper Jaffray, who has been a very long-term bull in Apple, expects Apple to demonstrate its television set sooner rather than later.  He called it a “when rather than if” scenario.  Despite what he expects will be a $2,000 target price, Muster believes that Apple can take as much as 10% of this television market. As far as the when, Munster thinks the announcement comes in the second half of 2012 and will be released during the first half of 2013.  Keep in mind that Gene Munster believes Apple’s stock price can hit $1,000 within two years.

Another positive call came today from R.W. Baird on OmniVision Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: OVTI) despite a huge drop of 12% after earnings fears may have it losing some Apple business.  Baird’s call noted that it believes that Apple has been selected as a supplier for camera chipsets as a second supplier for the rear-facing camera in he next iPhone.  J.P. Morgan also suggested that Omnivision may have won additional business from Apple. Both analysts acknowledged the drop here, which is a sharp fall of over 12% to $12.18.

Apple is down over $9.00, or .6%, along with the broad market and shares are at $568.35 against a 52-week range of $310.50 to $644.00. The consensus target price from Thomson Reuters is $708.50 as of now.

JON C. OGG