With several Apple suppliers licking their wounds after a week of losses, at least one analyst has started to upgrade them. Does that mean that shares of the iPhone maker have hit a bottom?
Pacific Crest Securities analyst John Vinh released a note late Thursday upgrading precision circuit maker Cirrus Logic, after the Apple supplier announced preliminary fiscal third-quarter net revenue of approximately $347 million, falling short of the $386 million predicted by analysts at Thomson Reuters.
Shares of Cirrus tumbled after hours, but given the pullback, Vinh wrote the stock is now "a buying opportunity." Analysts at Stifel also called for a bottom in the circuit maker's shares.
By Friday afternoon, Cirrus shares were up again, more than 4 percent.
"Meetings with headphones [manufacturers] increase our confidence in the noise-canceling earbud opportunity in the iPhone 7," Vinh wrote from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. "We noted several headphones on display with [Apple's] Lightening connector interfaces and [manufacturers] indicated superior sound quality from the use of a digital connector. ... In our view, Apple needs a compelling feature to upgrade, which noise-canceling earbuds would provide."
Cirrus is just one of many Apple suppliers that have trimmed revenue forecasts over the past month: others include Qorvo, Dialog Semiconductor and Taiwan's Hon Hai, known as Foxconn. Apple suppliers like Skyworks and Avago suffered double-digit percentage-point losses over the course of the week. But both were trading slightly in the green Friday afternoon.
It all comes as analysts have slashed expectations for iPhone unit sales this quarter through the middle of the year, looking toward an increasingly saturated smartphone market.
Could the suppliers' bounce mean relief for battered shares of Apple, which saw a 2 percent uptick midday Friday as the markets struggled for gains? Drexel Hamilton analyst Brian White has a "buy" on the stock, writing that "Apple's valuation has reached the point of absurdity."
Andy Hargreaves, senior research analyst at Pacific Crest, also has a bullish view on the tech giant's outlook, though he's chopped his expectations for iPhone sales.
"The action that we've seen in the past few weeks has priced in a lot of that decline," Hargreaves said Friday on CNBC's "Squawk Alley." "From our perspective, this isn't competitive share loss. It's just a reality that the [iPhone] 6 cycle was extraordinary, and the 6S cycle isn't quite as good. We think once you get back to the [iPhone] 7 cycle, we'll be back to growing."
David Rolfe, Wedgewood Partners chief investment officer and an investor in Apple, said the stock has seen a good reset in expectations.
"The pendulum now, particularly on valuation, swings more towards the bullish camp," Rolfe said Friday on "Squawk Alley."
— CNBC's Tae Kim contributed to this report.