The occasional Fortune contributor and current manager of (among other things) an Apple (AAPL)-only hedge fund is tired of seeing a stock he has analyzed every which way to Sunday maligned in the financial press and on cable television by people who, in his opinion, know nothing about the company, its management or the markets it operates in.
In a long screed published Thursday in the public portion of his subscriber-only Bullish Cross blog, Zaky tears into recent Apple-bashing articles by The New York Times‘ Joe Nocera (Has Apple Peaked?), The Street’s Rocco Pendola (If Steve Jobs Were Alive, He Would Fire Tim Cook) and Seeking Alpha’s Leonid Kanopka (The Apple Bubble is Ready to Burst).
But he saves his heaviest fire for Doug Kass, the founder and president of Seabreeze Partners and a frequent guest on CNBC’s The Kudlow Report, Jim Cramer’s Mad Money, Street Signs and Fast Money.
Last week and again on Wednesday, The Street published Kass’ The Bear Case For Apple — a 10-bulletpoint argument for why Apple, currently trading around $666 a share, is losing “its mojo and mindshare.”
What makes Zaky spitting mad is that Kass has been giving what he believes is the same bad advice — for the same ill-informed reasons — since Apple was trading for less than $100 a share. And to make his point, Zaky trots out a parade of Kass’ previous warnings:
- 2007: Don’t Buy Apple’s One-Trick iPhone Pony — published when Apple was trading for $90 a share
- 2009: The Kass Model Portfolio (Apple dropped from the Buy list) — Apple at $130 a share
- 2011: Apple (AAPL) & Gold (GLD): “Most Crowded Trades” Says Kass — Apple at $380
- 2012: Apple Euphoria Has Blinded Tech Investors — Apple in the low $500s
“So Kass has either called ‘the top’ on Apple or has consistently advised to sell it since 2007,” Zaky writes.
Zaky
What Kass and the other bears fail to understand, Zaky believes, is that high-profile events like the Maps flap and Antennagate are distractions. He feels has proven “time and again without a shred of doubt” that Apple’s stock price is dictated by technicals in the near-term and earnings growth in the long.
And that growth, Zaky is convinced, is limited only by the magnitude of the still-largely untapped global smartphone market.
His piece is titled “Apple $1000: Why Doug Kass will miss the next 50% move,” and you can read it here.
