AAPL Has 23% Downside as it trades near decade highs

AAPL currently trades at 9.77 times its trailing-twelve-month sales per share. With the stock at $309.35 and TTM sales of $31.65 a share, that multiple sits near the top of its ten-year range. On earnings it is the same: 35.39 times the $8.74 in trailing earnings per share, again close to decade highs.

The reason is straightforward. Since Mar 2024 the share price rose 82 percent while trailing sales only rose 28 percent.

The earnings multiple shows the same pattern.

A stock can look inexpensive on sales yet expensive on earnings when margins are shrinking. That is not the case here. Earnings per share rose 35 percent, faster than the 28 percent in sales. The share price rose 82 percent over the same stretch, which moved the earnings multiple from 26.19× to 35.39×.

How today’s multiples rank against AAPL’s own history

The table below shows where the current price-to-sales and price-to-earnings multiples rank against AAPL’s own history over different look-back windows.

16–23% Downside to Historical Multiples

From here, AAPL would need to drop 23% to reach the middle of its own valuation range. Its median price-to-sales multiple over the past five years is 7.57 times. Applied to today’s trailing sales of $31.65 per share, that points to a price of $239.62.

The gap is narrower on the earnings side. The five-year median multiple of 29.66 times, applied to trailing earnings of $8.74 per share, implies a price of $259.21, or 16% lower than today’s level.

Note

“Expensive” in this analysis means expensive only relative to AAPL’s own historical range. It does not speak to valuation versus peers or to the intrinsic value of the business. A multiple can remain high for years if the market has simply re-rated the company.