Brokerage firm downgrades Apple stock

It goes up, it comes down. On Monday Apple stocks hit their highest point in almost three months after analyst Doug Reid of Thomas Weisel Partners raised his rating on Apple’s stock to overweight from market weight, and lifted his price target to US$195 from $188, saying that the stock’s current valuation “excessively discounts” the company’s long-term growth prospects.

Now the Morgan Keegan firm has lowered its rating on Apple stock to “under perform,” down from a “market perform rating. The firm says Apple faces “mounting evidence of broad-based weakness in consumer technology spending in the U.S. and Europe,” reports the San Jose Business Journal. Morgan Keegan also said that because of the budget crisis hitting schools, the company’s sales to educational institutions will be challenged, as well.