Investor Carl Icahn said on Wednesday that he thinks Apple shares are still undervalued, and that he plans to revise his own price target for the stock, which he refers to as a “no-brainer” investment.
The billionaire appeared on CNBC on Wednesday, where Icahn said he and his team are pleased with Apple’s impressive quarterly results. While Icahn has a reputation for using his considerable wealth to interfere with publicly traded companies, he has been generally complimentary of Apple and its continued success.
“I don’t recommend too many stocks, I don’t like to do that unless I think it’s a no-brainer,” Icahn said. “And this one is sort of amazing to me, because you know every decade you get one of these — maybe two or three.”
Icahn says investors haven’t “understood” Apple for over a year, and given this week’s amazing fiscal Q1 2015 results, he’ll likely be revising the $203 price target he’s been pushing, likely taking the price even higher.
“I guess we’re going to have to revise our guidance,” Icahn said.
Icahn and his team still think Apple should spend more of its cash pile on buying back its own shares, especially since they’re so undervalued. Apple was sitting on $179 billion in cash as the end of fiscal quarter one of 2015.
Icahn generally fluctuates between praising Apple CEO Tim Cook and Apple’s management team for making great products, and taking issue with the company’s financial management.
The relationship between Icahn and Apple has improved since late 2013, when Icahn attempted to file a shareholder proxy vote to push Apple to repurchase more of its own shares. Icahn dropped the initiative following Apple’s buy back of around $14 billion of its shares in early 2014.
As of August 2014, Icahn held around 45 million shares of AAPL stock, giving him a considerable investment in the iPhone maker.
