CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Friday issued a sharp rebuke of analysts who cover Apple for slamming the tech giant over its decision not to break out device sales anymore.
“‘The analyst community,’” Cramer said on CNBC using air quotes with his fingers, “there’s a community I want to live in,” he added, sarcastically. “It takes a community to bring down that stock.”
Apple was sharply lower Friday, tracking for its worst day since January 2014, after revealing on Thursday’s earnings call that it will stop reporting how many iPhones, iPads and Macs it sells each quarter.
“The Wall Street community hates it when you change any metric,” Cramer said, mocking that they’re “up-in-arms because they can’t model.”
“Let them all panic,” Cramer chided. “I like what they did,” because it’s a step in the right direction to evaluate Apple as a consumer products company rather than tech firm, he added, reiterating an argument he’s been making for a while now. He said consumer products companies don’t break out everything little thing they sell and neither should Apple.
While acknowledging that Apple could have given investors more of a heads-up on the metric change, Cramer also said he’s “loathe to criticize the greatest company ever.”
Cramer suggested the sharp drop in Apple also had to do with the fact that the stock didn’t suffer as much as its tech counterparts did in October’s market rout. Apple shares only fell 3 percent last month compared with the other FAANG stocks — Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Google parent Alphabet — that took a bath.
Apple “came in too hot” ahead of Thursday’s after-the-bell earnings report, Cramer said. The company reported better-than-expected quarterly profit and revenue, but also weaker-than-expected iPhone shipments.
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