Apple is a "no brainer" investment, and it has been for years.
The company's first quarter earnings for 2015 only drive home that point. The firm's new products and features are wildly popular, the company is growing sales in markets outside the United States and every year Apple sells a greater quantity of devices than it did the year prior.
What's interesting about Apple is that for all the hype surrounding the company and its products, it still remains undervalued.
Consider this: analysts expect Apple to earn $8.79 per share in 2015. That's a 38.6% increase over the prior year. Putting aside for a moment the fact that analysts consistently underestimate Apple's earnings potential (the company hasn't had a consensus "miss" on quarterly earnings since 2012), the stock trades at a forward price-to-earnings of 14.6.
Companies in the S&P 500 as a whole are expected to grow earnings by 4.2%, giving the broader index a forward multiple of 17.9. So what we have is the largest company by market capitalization expected to outpace the market's earnings growth this year by more than nine fold, yet it trades at a discount (of more than 18%) to the market.
It makes no sense. This only goes to show how fundamentally misunderstood Apple is as a powerhouse, and one of the reasons why it could be the easiest "can't-miss" trade you make this year.
How We Used Apple To Find Triple-Digit Winners Now, we could simply tell you to buy Apple and leave it at that. After all, we told you it's a "no brainer" investment. But let's face it, that's not why you read StreetAuthority.
Last September when Apple Pay was announced, we pointed out how Andy predicted the company would develop a mobile payment solution as far back as June 2012. Of course, Andy didn't know what it would be called, so he coined the phrase "iCash."
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Nonetheless, he knew this idea would be huge. Over the next two and a half years, Andy and his team researched which companies were likely to be key partners with Apple in this endeavor.
Make no mistake, partnering up with Apple can be a real game-changer for a smaller company. For example, shares of wireless chip provider TriQuint Semiconductor, Inc. surged 45% in the six weeks following the iPhone 6 launch (TriQuint has since merged with another firm and is now called Qorvo).
For months, we've been researching and following a number of little-known Apple partners that could fare even better than Apple itself. And each of the companies we found has had a hand in making Apple's latest game-changing innovation, Apple Pay, a reality.
This was no easy task. Apple is notoriously secretive about who it partners with. But after painstaking research, Andy and his team came up with a list of five companies that would benefit from Apple Pay.
Before I tell you about our findings, let's back up a second and remind readers why we think this is so important -- and why it could make a fortune for smart investors.
Simply put, we think the timing is right for Apple Pay to change how we pay for everything. Smartphones have clearly impacted the way people live. Yes, we make phone calls with these devices, but we can now check email, send text messages, surf the web and watch movies. Smartphones can access bank accounts, store health records and perform an innumerable set of features that two decades ago were unimaginable.
With the Apple Pay revolution, smartphones can be used to shop at the local grocery store, gas station or shopping mall. It's the next logical step in the evolutionary chain. Apple Pay is simple to use, and more importantly, it's more secure than traditional forms of payment, like credit cards.
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As you can see from the chart below, three out of the five suppliers identified in our report have been on fire since Andy predicted the mobile payment revolution.
Now, out of fairness to Andy and his Game-Changing Stocks subscribers, we can't give you the names of all these stocks. But we can tell you about one of our favorites.
NXP Semiconductors (Nasdaq: NXPI) is a Netherlands-based chip maker that we've written about before. The company makes high-performance mixed microchips for the automotive, computer and cell phone industries, among others. Its near-field communications (NFC) chips are what help make Apple Pay possible.
Since Andy originally featured this company in his Game-Changing Stocks newsletter in 2012, shares are up 337%. Even after its impressive run, we think NXP is still a buy.
The company announced another impressive quarter on Thursday, largely thanks to Apple. We expect to see even more impressive results down the road. And just to add icing on the cake, there's another development that leads us to believe this stock can continue its upward march.
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On March 5, the company announced that it would merge with Austin, Texas-based Freescale Semiconductor Ltd. (NYSE: FSL) in a $40 billion deal. Combined, these two companies will be a powerhouse in the "smart chip" market.
We've mentioned before that mobile payments will be an epic transformation that could be Apple's biggest game-changer yet. And every day, we see more evidence to support our case. Just this week, Discover became the last major credit card issuer to adopt the technology.
But we think the five Apple suppliers mentioned in Andy's report have even more upside. That's because not only will an estimated $11 trillion in worldwide credit card transactions be opened up with mobile payments, but these firms will also have a hand in making the "Internet of Things" a reality.
Before you know it, your phone, your home appliances, your car, credit cards, home security system and even your city will be connected to each other. And the profit opportunities are going to be absolutely enormous.
Apple Pay is only the beginning of a larger, evolving trend that is being led by the suppliers in Andy's Special Report: Five Apple Partners To Profit Most From Apple Pay. You can get your hands on this report here.
