AAPL is the most underweight stock in the world despite most analysts rating it a ‘Buy’ – UBS

A research note by UBS says that AAPL is the most ‘underweight’ stock in global fund management accounts, reports Business Insider. This means that they have a lower percentage of AAPL stock than you’d expect from the company’s ranking in financial indices.

If, for example, Apple represents 5% of the market value of the exchange, a fund manager would make 5% of his portfolio to have it balanced. If it’s less than this, say 2%, it’s underweight and a signal that the fund manager doesn’t think the stock will perform as well as the wider stock market or other particular stocks …

This would make sense if analysts considered AAPL a poor investment, but this is not the case, says the note. Most analysts rate the stock a Buy, expecting the share price to rise significantly higher than its current $117 value.

Predicting the value of an AAPL share within the next 12 months, analyst estimates cited in the piece range from Cowen’s $125 to Piper Jaffray’s $155. Given those performance estimates, you’d expect most fund managers to be overweight on AAPL – holding more stock than its share of the stock exchange – rather than underweight.

Being underweight on AAPL is hurting the performance of stock funds, say some – one notable Apple investor among them.

Billionaire activist Carl Icahn said last year that “mutual funds will increasingly realise that being underweight shares of Apple will hurt their performance as the technology giant continues to innovate.”

It should be noted, however, that Icahn’s statement was made at a time when he believed the company would be making an HDTV set.

Some financial institutions are less enthusiastic about Apple, both UBS and Oppenheimer recently questioning the company’s strategy, the latter predicting a ‘decade-long malaise’ …