New Apple Price Target Gets Support From iPhone 17

We discussed last week being a positive week for the Portfolio as well as the market in Friday’s Weekly Roundup, and the momentum looks to continue on Monday.

Continuing that upward trajectory are reports that Treasury Secretary Bessent will spear head initial trade talks with China, and we could see an end to the government shutdown as soon as late this week. That latter comment was made by White House economic advisor Kevin Hassett, but he also shared that if it doesn’t happen, the Trump administration may impose “stronger measures” to force Democrats to cooperate.

We’ll have to see how this plays out and what it could mean as we move through a busy week of earnings reports, including those from Netflix (NFLX) , Intel (INTC) and Tesla (TSLA) , and get ready for the Federal Reserve’s policy meeting next week.

That preparation includes Friday’s September Consumer Price Index (CPI) report, which the market sees coming at 2.9% on a year-over-year basis with the core figure at 3.1%. That consensus forecast is a tad above the Cleveland Fed’s Inflation Nowcasting model at 2.95%.

As we can see below, the core CPI has been on an upswing in recently reported months and if the September print is more of the same, odds are it means the Fed will only stick to the forecast it penciled in with the September 2025 set of economic projections. Let’s remember too that on Friday we also have the Flash October PMI report from S&P Global, which will bring more on the inflation front and some clues on the jobs market.

While we look to see exactly what the coming days bring, we can share another positive data point for our Apple (AAPL) shares. Counterpoint Research finds that Apple’s iPhone 17 has outpaced sales of the iPhone 16 in China during their first 10 days of availability. For the combined China and U.S. markets, the firm sees iPhone 17 volumes up 14% year over year for their first 10 days of availability, which is also positive for our shares of Universal Display (OLED) and Qualcomm (QCOM) .

While it’s the base iPhone 17 model that is performing in China, Counterpoint finds it is the iPhone 17 Pro Max that has had the strongest ramp in the U.S. As we know, the Pro Max iPhone model carries a far greater average selling price, which could mean a nice top-line surprise when Apple reports its September quarter results on October 30. Implied guidance and a full quarter of iPhone 17 sales could give us cause to revisit our recently increased price target.

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At the time of publication, TheStreet Pro Portfolio was long AAPL, QCOM and OLED.