Apple Stock Shock: 52-Week Highs Are Imminent!

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) had spent much to most of the last year getting no respect. Despite Tim Cook feeling like Rodney Dangerfield, the consumer electronics giant saw an upgrade from the team at UBS to Buy from Neutral. It sounds positive that the price target was raised to $650 from $540, but there is something far more impressive and frankly almost shocking: Apple’s stock price is barely short of hitting a new 52-week high again, and that will be even closer after Wednesday.

This almost seems as though it cannot be, but this is what happens when enough time passes. Old numbers start rolling off of the current data. The old high of $705 still matters much more, but Apple’s 52-week trading range is $385.10 to $581.80. The consensus Apple price target from analysts is also $579.29 according to Thomson Reuters. Its median price target is marginally higher at $590.

Where this story gets even more interesting is that Apple’s stock might not even have to rally $15 more from its $566.32 closing price to hit a 52-week high. We looked back at the tape for highs and lows, and this $581.80 high was back on December 4, 2012. Tuesday was December 3, 2013. After Wednesday, the 52-week high will drop down to $569.25.

Before you get too ambitious here we would want our readers to consider that profit takers may emerge going into year-end. The stock was under $400 just at the end of June, so the stock price has risen 43% in just five months.

The upgrade was in part over a China Mobile hopeful deal, which would add several dollars per share in earnings to Apple if the analyst was right in his assessment. Market data provider IDC just lowered its tablet shipment growth forecasts out to 2016 due to the rise of large screen smartphones. Those are phablets for the rest of us. Apple is not considered in the phablet market, at least not until likely in 2014.

If Apple falls on Wednesday the stock will not be at new 52-week highs, but the stock now only has to rally about $3 more per share to get up to a 52-week high after Wednesday. We would also remind readers that Apple has paid out $11.80 in cash dividends over the last year and this impacts the numbers from source to source (see * note below). Maybe this will keep Carl Icahn happy enough to remain quiet here about the company’s ability to leverage up for a huge stock buyback.

*HI/LO from Yahoo! Finance and Google Finance not adjusted for dividends