It may not be the right time to take a bite out of Apple.
Shares of the tech giant fell nearly 3.5% on Wednesday after analysts at Bank of America Securities and Bernstein put out bearish notes on the stock. BofA cut its price target on Apple to $320 from $350, while Bernstein's Tony Sacconaghi warned that the stock is one of the "most exposed companies to a worldwide demand pushout/recession."
Craig Johnson, senior technical research analyst at Piper Sandler, says Apple's recent run points to a painful next step.
"There's no question Apple is a great company. I'm not sure it's a great stock, though, at this point in time," Johnson said on CNBC's "Trading Nation" on Wednesday. "It's practically a parabolic chart, and when we've seen parabolic charts in the past, which are charts that go up at a very steep ascent, they usually come back and end one way … badly. You end up seeing big corrections and setbacks."
Apple has climbed 54% in the past year, far outpacing the S&P 500, which is down 2%. But Johnson said the chart points to a significant drop for the stock before it regains support.
"The next big area of support comes into play on this stock about another 10-12% lower from where we are right now, which would get you to about a 20-25% kind of peak-to-trough correction in the stock," Johnson said.
Apple shares ended trading at $275.43 on Wednesday. A 12% decline could bring its price down to just above the $242 level.
"At that point in time, we think there's good footing on the stock," Johnson said. "We'd step up and be buyers of Apple at that point."
Nancy Tengler, chief investment officer at Laffer Tengler Investments, hasn't had much love for Apple for some time now.
"We've been selling prior to this when all the analysts were upgrading and raising their price targets on the stock," Tengler said in the same interview. "I need for it to come back a little bit further to be adding to it."
However, Tengler agreed it would be time to buy the stock if Apple dropped a bit lower.
"I think the company has a lot of levers to pull," she said. "I would wait for the stock to pull back a little bit and then I'd be stepping back in and expect a big dividend increase next quarter."
The stock was down more than 5% in Thursday's premarket, trading at $259.60.
Disclosure: Laffer Tengler Investments owns shares of Apple. Piper Sandler is a registered market maker for Apple.
