The Latest for Our Portfolio Names at Quarter's Close

Before we close out the final day of trading for June and the current quarter, let’s catch up with some recent news and developments for our shares of Apple AAPL, Qualcomm QCOM, Universal Display OLED, Lockheed Martin LMT and Morgan Stanley MS. Let’s also check in on some updated price forecasts for gold.

Apple, Qualcomm and Universal Display

Figures from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology showed smartphone shipments in China rose 13% in May. This is a positive data point for our shares of QCOM and OLED, but digging deeper into the data, it’s positive for AAPL as well. We say this because foreign brands, of which Apple accounts for the vast majority, grew almost four times faster. This continues the bounce back in iPhone shipments in China that began in March and makes the data even more favorable for our shares of QCOM and OLED.

Sticking with Apple, Oppenheimer boosted its price target to $250 from $200. That’s part catch-up relative to our $230 one, but the above data means we will have to consider further upside to ours. With the June revenue report coming before too long from Taiwan Semi, we’ll hold off making any adjustments ahead of the upcoming holiday week.

Lockheed Martin: More Program Wins and the Next Dividend

Lockheed Martin LMT was awarded more than $2 billion in incremental program wins between the U.S. Air Force and Navy on Thursday. This continues the streak, adding further to the company’s multi-year backlog. We continue to like the visibility this affords us as shareholders, but we continue to see the next real catalyst for LMT shares being the resumption of F35 shipments in 2H 2025.

Also on Thursday, Lockheed announced that its fourth consecutive quarterly dividend of $3.15 per share will paid on September 27, 2024, to shareholders of record on September 3, 2024. Because of the company’s growing backlog and the expected rebound in F-35 shipments, we would not be surprised if Lockheed eventually boosts its quarterly dividend.

Morgan Stanley

On Thursday, clinical-stage biopharma company Alumis (ALMZ) priced its IPO at $16 per share. We’re sharing this because the offering was led by Morgan Stanley, making this the latest positive data point for the company’s investment banking business. We touched on this in Thursday's note on the recent bank stress test results and quarterly earnings from Jefferies JEF that support a stronger investment banking market in the coming quarters.

After Friday's close, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America BAC will announce their dividend and buyback plans following the successful completion of the Fed’s bank stress tests. As we digest these learnings, we’ll revisit our price targets for MS and BAC shares as needed.

Gold!

BMI, a unit of Fitch Solutions, upped its 2024 gold price forecast to $2,250 per ounce from $2,100 per ounce, with a "neutral" view as it sees prices for the shiny metal in a tug-of-war between the Fed and geopolitical tension. Friday's May PCE price data was incrementally positive on inflation progress, while negotiations between Israel and Hamas appear to have stalled and the State Department reissued a travel alert for Lebanon.

Candidly, our view is BMI is a bit behind the curve given the current $2,341.50 per ounce price for gold. Other recent gold price forecasts from Citi and Goldman Sachs range between $2,700 per ounce and $3,000 per ounce.

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At the time of publication, TheStreet Pro Portfolio was long AAPL, QCOM, OLED, LMT, MS and BAC.