Shares of Apple Inc. rose 2% in premarket trade Tuesday despite PiperJaffray analyst Gene Munster, among Wall Street’s most bullish analysts on Apple with a $179 price target and buy rating on the stock, lowering his iPhone unit estimates for the second quarter, which ends in March. Munster still expects the company to deliver a better-than-feared outlook for the second quarter, since expectations are already so low. He believes shares will reset as long as the company delivers a guidance on iPhone unit sales of at least 45 million, which would only be slightly higher than the 44 million it reported in the year-earlier period, and sharply below the 56 million analysts on average are expecting, according to FactSet. A number of analysts have reeled in iPhone unit estimates in recent weeks, yet the average rating on the stock remains the equivalent to buy, while the average 12-month price target sits at $140.55, which represents a 43% increase from Monday’s closing price. Separately on Tuesday, Bank of America reiterated a buy rating on Apple, saying that its surveys indicate room to grow for Apple’s iPad in China. More than half of respondents in the survey also indicated that they plan to buy a new phone within the year. Shares of Apple have fallen 12% over the last three months.
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