Apple Analyst Sentiment Hits Five-Year Low After Two Downgrades

Apple Inc. was hit with a pair of downgrades on Thursday, in the latest sign of caution toward the iPhone maker, which has sharply underperformed its large-cap tech peers this year.

With the downgrades, Apple’s recommendation consensus — a proxy for the ratio of buy, hold, and sell ratings — has dropped to 3.9 out of 5, its lowest since early 2020, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Just 55% of the analysts tracked by Bloomberg recommend buying the stock, which is extremely low among megacaps. Nvidia Corp., Microsoft Corp., and Amazon.com Inc., for instance, all have ratios above 90%.