Memory makers have been overwhelmed by chip shortages over the past few months. Manufacturers can’t keep up with demand for NAND and DRAM, and AI companies are getting desperate. They’re saving whatever they can, and memory companies are squeezing their consumers to meet enterprise demand.
Amidst all this chaos, however, lies Apple ( AAPL ) stock. Investors are choosing to buy red-hot memory stocks rather than opting to buy “fixed assets” like AAPL stock, but that may actually be why it’s worth buying right now. Of course, that is if you believe this one Wall Street expert.
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Evercore ISI analysts led by Amit Duraniani look the other way. The company acknowledges that the memory crisis is putting pressure on hardware original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), but points out that Apple is apart of that narrative. Evercore’s investor conversations over the past week revealed that the market is broadly optimistic about memory suppliers but broadly cautious about OEMs, and yet Apple is seeing a quiet decline in bearish sentiment.
Evercore now has an “outperform” rating and a $330 price target on the stock, and has kept Apple among its top picks for 2026. What Evercore likes is the capital spending story, the iPhone 17 build, and Apple’s expected growth in Evercore 2026. Features to be completed in phases this year, with updated Siri functionality coming mid-year and a complete overhaul this fall.
Apple’s basics give this article some real leg up. The company just posted fiscal first-quarter 2026 revenue of $143.8 billion and EPS of $2.84, both ahead of Street estimates. iPhone revenue grew 23% year-over-year (YOY) and, in particular, memory headwinds barely dented gross margins in the quarter. Management guided for revenue growth of 13% to 16% YOY in the March quarter, better than the Street’s estimate of around 10%.
Dariani isn’t the only analyst who wants you to buy Apple. AAPL stock is a consensus “moderate buy” if you average all the ratings.
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Going into memory stocks may seem like the path of least resistance because they’re rising. However, this is exactly what makes them dangerous, because the memory sector is notorious for being cyclical. AI has changed things, but no one expects this trend to last forever.
In fact, many investors are not buying because they see a long-term rally in memory stocks driven by fundamentals. They instead try to time the market before reaching its peaks. We are already seeing signs that memory loss is no longer accelerating but slowing down and possibly cooling off in the coming months. Obviously, it takes a long time to normalize things, but you don’t need normality for the memory stock to drop from the happy level.
On the other hand, AAPL stock gives investors what very few technical stocks can in this environment: stability and long-term gains.
If you’re worried that Apple will take a hit from a memory crunch and mark down the margin, it’s possible. However, the probability of this happening is low, and Apple is one of those who will face a memory shortage because its ecosystem is very good at keeping users.
Not only that, manufacturers are known to give better treatment and priority to Apple due to the size of the company. They are more than willing to miss out on this temporary memory price increase if it means keeping Apple as a customer for a long time.
Apple also charges what its end customers call exorbitant fees for RAM. Apple charges $200 for each 8GB increase. That’s unified memory, but it’s still above what the market charged when RAM prices were normal. Given that people are happily buying more RAM from Apple at these prices, I wouldn’t worry about this RAM shortage eating into its margins.
At the time of publication, Omar Ibn Ihsan had no position (either directly or indirectly) in any of the secrets mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is for informational purposes only. This article was originally published on Barchart.com
