Apple's weak Mac and iPhone demand and soaring costs threaten worse Q3 results and Q4 guidance than its weak Q2. IDC estimates Mac sales fell 11% y/y in Q3 after rising 13% in Q2. Counterpoint says Pro sales rose just 3% in the first three weeks while overall iPhone sales fell; lower-end models are absent this year. Foldable yields are reportedly 60%, and $100 price hikes may not offset costs. At $5 trillion, 39 P/E and 11 times sales, Apple's crowded 'safe haven' looks vulnerable. x.com 

Qualcomm stays a Hold, with the target cut to $186 on handset weakness and limited near-to-mid-term data-center visibility. Fiscal Q4 2026 revenue guidance of $9.7-10.5B fell short of buy-side chatter near $11B; Android faces elevated wafer inventories and Apple modem revenue is falling faster than expected. Data-center targets of $5B in FY27 and $15B+ in FY29 were reaffirmed and AI250 has four major US cloud customers, but high LPDDR5 prices hurt its competitiveness, and CPUs are years off. … Show more

Qualcomm's datacenter push would still cover its lost Apple revenue even if it missed its targets by half. At its 2026 IR day, management called datacenter its biggest opportunity ever, targeting $5B of revenue in FY27 with capacity and memory secured and $15B+ by FY29, and raised FY29 non-handset revenue to $40B from $22B. After endless bear cases, from Apple to Samsung and China competition, anything is upside. Hiccups are likely, as no organic datacenter product has customers yet. x.com  x.com  … Show more

Memory-cost pressure, weak volumes and weak services should make Apple's quarter bad, giving the short a chance to work on this quarter alone. Other hardware companies this quarter also point to weakness, though Apple has been a terrible short so far. x.com  x.com 

Qualcomm has a terrible position in every market it competes in and is not cheap enough to compensate. It faces Nvidia in cars, Intel and AMD in data-center CPUs, and Samsung and Google on their own phones. China is a material share of revenue, and Apple is aggressively cutting out Qualcomm's modem, a long-term revenue headwind. @citrini, bullish since December, made a good call, but the short stands; it also works as a funding short against long compute names such as AMD, SanDisk and Lumentum. … Show more

Qualcomm is still priced as a phone company even as diversification absorbs the loss of Apple modem revenue. Non-handset revenue is now about 34% of QCT; automotive revenue grew 38% to $1.3 billion, with 50% growth guided for Q3 and an exit above $6 billion for FY2026. Snapdragon X2 Elite gives it edge-AI leadership, with over 100 Copilot+ PC designs. Q2 FY2026 beat on revenue of $10.6 billion and EPS of $2.65. The Apple overhang of about $6-8 billion is priced in and nearly over. x.com 

Qualcomm is weak in its own capabilities while facing longer phone replacement cycles and pricier memory. Its other growth narratives are a very long way off. x.com 

Apple dropping Qualcomm in favor of its own chips is a warning sign for Qualcomm. When Apple dumped Intel's chips, it marked five years of pain for Intel. Around $150 would be the right level to step in. x.com 

Qualcomm has little downside with Amazon having come in as an investor at around $160 a share. Investors give it almost no credit for AI, wearables, robotics and auto, and those businesses can do the heavy lifting to keep the stock steady next year. x.com 

Qualcomm is unlikely to rebound meaningfully this year because on-device AI needs more mobile DRAM that phones are not getting. Industry checks suggest Apple walked back full WMCM packaging for the iPhone 18, adopted to fit more DRAM for on-device AI, using it only in high-end models with no RAM upgrade. If Apple, with the strongest buying power, faces this, Qualcomm would need an extraordinary breakthrough past the memory wall. This counters @citrini's view of it as an edge-AI winner. x.com