Dan Ives Thinks Apple’s New MacBook Pro Is a Positive Move with Q4 Earnings Almost Here

New Apple (AAPL) CEO John Ternus's tenure could not have had a better start. AAPL stock is up almost 9% since his appointment on Sept. 1, with two notable firsts making the iPhone maker the world's most valuable company in terms of market cap. The launch of Apple's first foldable phone (iPhone Duo) and its first-ever MacBook with a touchscreen (the new 14-inch MacBook Pro) have propelled the company's market cap beyond $5 trillion, taking it past chip giant Nvidia (NVDA).

Long-time Apple bull Dan Ives believes that the new touchscreen MacBook Pro would expedite Apple's path to monetize AI. In an investor note to clients, Ives said, “The chip is the story. M6 moves to a 12-core CPU and 12-core GPU, two more cores each than M5, with Neural Accelerators in every GPU core and a dual 16-core Neural Engine that Apple says runs up to 1.9x faster than M5. The AI numbers are the ones we care about: up to 25% faster on-device LLM prompt processing versus M5, up to 13x faster time to first token versus the M1 machine, memory configurable to 32GB with 170GB/s of bandwidth, and up to 24 hours of battery, the longest Apple has shipped in a Mac.”

Ives's bullishness about AAPL stock has found quite a few takers this year. Apple is the best-performing “Mag 7” stock this year, up 25% on a year-to-date (YTD) basis, outperforming the S&P 500 ($SPX). Nvidia was a distant second, up 11% on a YTD basis.

New Products Give AAPL Stock Further Thrust

With iPhone Duo, and now the touchscreen MacBook Pro, Apple's share price is expected to continue on its upward trajectory.

U.S. inflation at 3.7% was higher than the 3.4% recorded in August, yet that was not enough to deter Apple fanatics from delaying their purchase of the company's first foldable phone. As soon as pre-orders opened on Oct. 16, delivery timelines rapidly shifted from Oct. 23 to November to eventually to January, suggesting that Apple's brand strength and the novelty of its first foldable device have been sufficient to attract buyers despite its exceptionally high price. Moreover, the Duo made quite the splash in China too, a market where Apple has been struggling recently, with consumers increasingly trading up to premium devices despite weakness in the broader smartphone market. Overall, as per IDC, Apple could capture 44% of the category's revenue in 2026, despite entering it for the first time.

The touchscreen MacBook Pro will be an entirely different ballgame. Priced at a premium to what is on offer from the likes of Dell (DELL), Lenovo (LNVGY), and HP (HP), the new MacBook Pro costs almost 2.9 times the average touchscreen notebook selling price. Aimed at a particular cohort, the tandem OLED display, 120 Hz ProMotion, and high brightness are meaningful upgrades for creative professionals.

However, the response so far from the tech review community has been mixed, with popular YouTuber Marques Brownlee summing up the surrounding sentiment quite well. Praising the display and lighter chassis, Brownlee raised concerns around fingerprints on the display, arm fatigue from repeatedly touching the screen, screen wobble when touched, and limited usefulness when compared with a conventional trackpad.

But these may be teething problems, and as usage grows with passing time, the new MacBook Pro can be another value-enhancing launch from the stable of Apple.  

A Solid Q3

Apple posted an exceptional third quarter as the technology leader surpassed expectations on both revenue and earnings while producing record operating cash flows. Total revenue advanced 16% year-over-year (YoY) to $109.4 billion. iPhone sales climbed 22% to $54.3 billion during the period. Mac sales rose 29% to $10.4 billion; iPad revenue slipped 6% to $6.2 billion, and the Wearables, Home and Accessories segment increased 7% to $7.9 billion. The Services segment generated $30.7 billion, reflecting a 12% YoY gain. Although Mac performance was solid, it will be important to track results in the current quarter now that recent price increases have taken full effect.

Gross margins crossed the 50% threshold compared with 46.5% in the year-earlier period. Earnings per share increased 29% YoY to $2.02, beating the consensus estimate of $1.89 and extending Apple’s streak of consecutive earnings beats to nine quarters.

This consistency is impressive, yet plenty of market participants remain focused on the company’s artificial intelligence direction. Apple appears to have made meaningful progress on that front with the latest version of Siri AI.

Cash from operating activities for the nine months ended June 27, 2026, totaled $117 billion, up from $81.8 billion in the comparable prior-year period. The company closed the quarter with $39.5 billion in cash, well above its short-term debt balance of $11 billion.

However, relative to the broader industry, AAPL shares trade at elevated valuation levels. The forward P/E, P/S, and P/CF of 38.98, 10.53, and 33.99 are all above the sector medians of 21.36, 3.28, and 18.74, respectively.

Apple is set to report its Q4 results tomorrow, after market hours. Set to be John Ternus's first call as Apple CEO, analysts are expecting the company to report revenues of $113.39 billion and earnings of $1.99 per share. Notably, iPhone revenues are expected to rise 15% on a YoY basis to $56.54 billion and service revenues by 10% in the same period to $31.56 billion.

Analyst Opinion on AAPL Stock

Overall, analysts have earmarked a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” for AAPL stock. The mean target price has already been surpassed, while the high target price of $400 denotes a potential upside of 16% from current levels. Out of the 40 analysts covering the stock, 19 have a “Strong Buy” rating, three have a “Moderate Buy” rating, 15 have a “Hold” rating, one has a “Moderate Sell” rating, and two have a “Strong Sell” rating.

On the date of publication, Pathikrit Bose did not directly have a position in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. For more information please view the Barchart Disclosure Policy here.