When the Wedbush analyst weighed in recently on President Donald Trump’s plan to slap a 25% tariff on all imported cars, he boiled his feelings down to two words: “pure chaos.”
After speaking with business leaders and supply-chain experts from around the world, Ives said the investment firm was taking the view that the tariffs are the start of negotiations with countries and even individual companies to level the playing field.
Analyst: Apple, others under pressure from tariffs
Many tech companies depend heavily on China for manufacturing, market access and revenue.
Ives warned that “especially China-exposed names” like Apple (AAPL) , Nvidia (NVDA) , Tesla (TSLA) , Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM) , and a host of other tech and supply-chain companies will be the most under pressure “as worries about this China 34% tariff (could be 54% when adding the baseline) and 32% Taiwan tariff are almost hard to look at.”
“No matter what the White House says … basic economic theory over the last 100 tells you one person pays these tariffs … the US consumer…. [It’s] not a debate,” Ives said.
The analyst added that numbers are now going to have come down across the tech world “as just the sheer uncertainty from this tariff announcement heard around the world will cause some IT budgets to freeze and C-level management to figure out their own supply chain and how to navigate this near-term Category 5 hurricane.”
“We will see an upcoming earnings season for 1Q in which it would not surprise us if many companies/management teams did not give guidance and would take us back to some of those March/June 2020 Covid days of uncertainty,” Ives said.
Apple is scheduled to report earnings May 1. The Cupertino, Calif., tech giant’s shares up are 20% from a year ago but at last check April 3 were down nearly 9%.
Ives rates the stock outperform with a $325 price target.
B of A: All Apple products subject to tariffs
Other investment firms issued research reports on Apple following the tariff announcement.
Citi maintained a buy rating with a $275 price target on the computer and iPhone producer but warned that with Apple having more than 90% of its manufacturing done in China, it faces a 9% negative impact to total gross margin as a result of the reciprocal tariff rate.
The new tariffs are expected to be effective April 9. Citi said it was awaiting more details from the company and the administration on how the tariffs will be implemented, the analyst says in a note.
Bank of America Securities analysts cut their price target on Apple to $250 from $265 and maintained a buy rating.
Given the latest news around tariffs being set at 54% on China, 26% on India and 46% on Vietnam, all Apple products will be subject to tariffs at various rates, the investment firm said.
B of A expects Apple to manage its supply chain to minimize the impact, but if these tariff rates stand and Apple absorbs the entire $20 billion of headwind and 5 percentage points to gross margins, the firm expects a $1.24 hit to EPS in calendar 2026.
Meanwhile, France is pushing the European Union to retaliate against U.S. tech companies in response to Trump’s tariffs, Bloomberg reported.
The EU is considering using its anti-coercion instrument to strike back against the U.S., with French government spokeswoman Sophie Primas saying responses could be ready by the end of April.
The issue of taxing digital services has split the EU, with countries like France and Italy implementing national taxes while others, like Germany, have opposed the idea.
