Prior to the announcement of the 2nd quarter earnings report, Bernstein's analysts $Apple (AAPL.US)$ upgraded its rating from 'buy' to 'hold'. Against the background of difficulties in the largest market, China, where iPhone sales are slowing down, apple stocks are underperforming compared to competitors and the overall market.
The current weakness in China is considered cyclical rather than structural, with no significant long-term concerns. Furthermore, the analyst noted that Apple's customer base remains sensitive to product features, leading to historically high volatility in Apple's business in China. It is believed that replacement cycles and tailwinds from new AI features will support the sales of the iPhone 16.
Apple to announce 2nd quarter earnings report.
Apple will announce its second quarter earnings on Thursday, May 2nd. Wall Street expects Apple's revenue and earnings to be impacted in the short term due to the sluggish hardware sales.
Analysts expect the company's revenue to decrease by 4.7% compared to the previous year. Furthermore, due to the challenges in the largest market, China, where iPhone sales are slowing down, Apple stock is underperforming compared to its competitors and the overall market.

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Market Overview
U.S. market start: The Dow Jones Industrial Average, consisting of high-quality stocks, opened at 38,819.61 dollars, up 29.18 dollars. The Nasdaq Composite Index, with a high proportion of technology stocks, started at 16,031.93, down 71.52 points. The S&P 500 Index, consisting of 500 large-cap stocks in the U.S., started at 5,139.09, down 10.33 points.
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Top News
NVIDIA's CEO to make AI semiconductors "even larger" to ease the shortage.
Top U.S. semiconductor company. $NVIDIA (NVDA.US)$Continues to perform strongly. At the self-owned event held on the 18th, the company announced new semiconductor products for advanced AI (artificial intelligence) generation. CEO Jensen Huang mentioned the need for large quantities of semiconductors to power the increasingly advanced AI.