Apple's run to $2 trillion may be too far, too fast, even according to analysts who love the company

Published Wed, Aug 19 20201:12 PM EDTUpdated Wed, Aug 19 20201:18 PM EDT

Jesse Pound @/in/jesse-pound @jesserpound

Apple made history on Wednesday as the first U.S. company to pass $2 trillion in market cap , but the latest leg of the rally has made even some of its most ardent fans on Wall Street skittish. The stock's meteoric 59% rise this year puts its price about 9% above its average Wall Street 12-month price target, according to FactSet. Over the past five years, the stock has rarely traded above that average target before eventually turning lower. This comes as the majority of analysts are still fans of the company who have been aggressively raising their stock price forecasts. The stock currently has buy ratings from 61% of the analysts that cover it, according to FactSet, down from 71% earlier in the year. Another 29% call it a hold. The latest stretch of the rally has come after Apple blew past Wall Street expectations for its fiscal third quarter results. The company reported that sales were up 11% year over year despite the pandemic, and the stock has risen more than 21% since the announcement. The speed of that rally has stock past the targets of some of the more bullish firms, like Piper Sandler, which hiked its target to $450 per share from $310 following the earnings report. Other analysts, however, did not fully buy in to the good news from the quarter. Goldman Sachs raised its price target on the stock to just $314 per share after the report, well below where it traded at the time, and raised its earnings estimate for 2021 by just 1%. The firm downgraded the stock to sell from neutral in April. A more recent downgrade came from Bank of America, which moved the the stock to neutral from buy two weeks ago, citing concerns about a possibly shrinking gross margin. The firm also put out a new note on Tuesday raising concern about slowdown in Apple store sales in China. "Apple is experiencing a slowdown in the growth of Apple store revenues in China given the economy is re-opening, and tougher compares. We worry that this could be a precursor to similar deceleration in other areas once the economies start to reopen like in China," the new Bank of America note said. One of the biggest bears on the stock is Wolfe Research, which initiated coverage of the stock in July with an underperform rating. The firm said in a note that justifications for the stock's multiple expansion "all seem thin" and gave it a target price of $315 per share. "We are unwilling to endorse a sum-of-the-parts valuation as we consider the services business ultimately dependent on iPhone sales," Wolfe Research said in a note. "The iPhone's high price and infrequent replacement argue against applying a consumer staple multiple." — CNBC's Michael Bloom contributed to this story.

Tim Cook, chief executive officer of Apple, speaks at the 2019 Dreamforce conference in San Francisco on November 19, 2019.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Apple made history on Wednesday as the first U.S. company to pass $2 trillion in market cap, but the latest leg of the rally has made even some of its most ardent fans on Wall Street skittish.

The stock's meteoric 59% rise this year puts its price about 9% above its average Wall Street 12-month price target, according to FactSet. Over the past five years, the stock has rarely traded above that average target before eventually turning lower.