CLSA Upgrades Apple on Back of Q2 Results - Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL)

On Thurday, CLSA upgraded shares of Apple

AAPL

from Outperform to Buy and raised the price target from $610 to $695. Analyst Avi Silver's upgrade is based on:

Earnings momentum poised to accelerate as users upgrade to iPhone 6.
The analyst is forecasting mid-teens EPS growth over the next 3 quarters.
”Near-term earnings risk is low as an expanded iPhone lineup mitigates iPhone 6 anticipating risk,” said Silver.
An additional $4-5 per share could be provided by iWatch.
Upside from an expanded services platform.

From the Apple

, one of the most interesting data points was “over 50% of iPhone activations in the last six months were new users,” according to Silver. Silver feels Apple can “reclaim” smartphone market share in Europe and Asia when the company rolls out a larger-screen iPhone later this year, and possibly in 2015. Shares of Apple are up 7.7 percent to $565.30 in Thursday's trading fueled by a

massive second quarter earnings beat

, stock split, dividend increase, and increased buyback.

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