Some updates. Appreciate it. And Dan Ives joining us now, global head of tech research, Wedbush Securities. And we have so much going on. It's great to see you. So the hyperscalers, what do you think ratepayer protection plan? Tell me about that. What does that mean?
It's what they need to do. I mean, I think there's more data centers under construction today than active data centers. So when you think about, you know, for the hyperscalers, they're going to need to ultimately pay their own bill. I think it's a smart move, you know, and especially the last thing you want is data centers being built in an area in a community. And that becomes a huge negative given electricity prices are going to go up for everyone else. So I think this is a smart move by administration. White House, that was a step in the right direction. You know, making sure these big tech players, you know, ultimately pay their own bill.
Does that help their stock prices at all? I mean, it sounds like they may have to, you know, foot the bill and that may not help the stock prices.
I actually think it's a positive because look, again, it goes back to like we're in year three of an 8 to 10 year build out of the AI revolution. There's more data centers under construction today than active data centers. You need to have the right guardrails in place, from electricity to safeguards to everything else for these big tech players. Otherwise, they become a bull's eye on their back. Within communities, data centers get voted down by different communities instead. On the other hand, they pay. It creates jobs in the community, and I think that's the right move that big tech needs to take.
What did you think of Apple's unveiling some new products? I know AI, AI is a big deal going forward. Do you love Apple? Where do you think it could be headed? I saw you have a price target of 350.
Look, I mean iPhone 17. Look at this cycle. The cycle has been a lot stronger than expected. The newer products, that's probably going to be about a 200 increase to June quarter growth. But but this is all set up right now. They're focused on getting as many products as as many price points as possible with what's ultimately going to be the AI story coming to Cupertino now, has this been delayed? Yes. Has it been frustrating? Yeah. But you could argue Apple maybe backed into it, but they're actually in a great position because it comes down to they haven't spent the CapEx. Google's now obviously the partner on Gemini. And you're going to have ultimately the consumer AI revolution comes to Apple. That's worth $7,500 per share of the stock.
Do you see another $100 higher? How quickly can we get to 350?
I think we're there within a year. I just I think last year's Google will be this year's Apple relative to a year ago. Hey, you know, New York City cab driver. Google going to get broken up by DOJ. AI's ruining search. That's how I view this Apple setup. And look at it right. It is holding up safety like in this market.
You did say CrowdStrike had robust earnings. The healthy guidance, the AI monetization. You put a 550 target there on CrowdStrike. The price 3.91 or so today. Why so bullish here on CrowdStrike?
I look I think from an AI monetization, there's no better cybersecurity position than CrowdStrike. I think what George and the team are doing and they you're starting to actually see it in numbers. When you think about what's happening between agents, between use cases, all the data center build out. Cybersecurity is being front and center. It's a fairy tale to think that anthropic is in any way going to unseat a CrowdStrike, a Pao Alto, a checkpoint. And I think cybersecurity is just so oversold. Nicole, it's going to go if you look at last week's anthropic event, in my opinion, that really started the bottoming process for software because that was the recognition where this is going to be a lot more smoke than fire. And it was interesting how we have the administration, Department of War moving away from anthropic and cloud and going to ChatGPT in open AI.
Let's not leave out Gemini. That's very popular. Google's Gemini, there's grock, there's perplexity. Which one's the best in your mind? What's number one, what's number two and why?
Look, I mean, anthropic is obviously done a great job in terms of what we see with cloud. And of course, you know, what we've seen in terms of open AI. But to me it really comes down to like llms that eventually will be much more commoditized. I think what you've seen with anthropic, it's the value is going to be in the data. It goes back to like, you see all the worries about Claude Palantir. Palantir is where the value is from a DoD Pentagon, not necessarily Claude, maybe incremental what they're helping, but that could be plug and play with other models. It's all going to be in the data, the stack, the software. It speaks to. Our view software layer is going to be a huge player in AI. And I think that right now that ghost trade between anthropic I think is just the wrong move. It's the most disconnected trade that I've seen. You know, going back to the late 90s.
On a scale of 1 to 10, how much stress does the Iran conflict put onto tech stocks?
I'd say a 7 to 8, just in terms of not necessarily a direct correlation, but it's a risk off right oil VIX you know you see risk off across the board tech obviously you know even though holding you know maybe a little better than some would have thought. But it adds to the agita and the nervousness that you already had going into the tech trade with anthropic, with the ghost trade, with worries about CapEx spending. It's not what you needed right now from a tech perspective, but I do think investors are willing to look ahead and be like, go back to a year ago, Liberation Day, deep seek other moments. And I think that's what this moment is going to be, is an opportunity. And especially when it comes to the software trade, I think that's a huge bottoming process that's going on.
