Although Apple has had much success recently with the iPad 2 being sold out and experiencing ballooning revenues and a record of high quarterly reports, Apple’s stock has recently been downgraded from “market outperform” to “market perform” by JMP securities. The firm said that it made the choice based on the “notable deceleration in [Apple's] primary manufacturing partner Hon Hai (Foxconn) that was emerging even prior to the amplified uncertainty created by developments in Japan.” JMP Securities suggested that Hon Hai’s sales decelerated from 84% year on year in December to 37% in January – then decelerated once again to 26% in February. Alex Gauna of JMP securities writes: We don’t know the source of the Hon Hai deceleration, but possible causes could include simply in-line iPhone sales due to more significant Android competition, weakness in computing products as tablet demand grows, and/or product transition risk around the iPad 2. While we see Apple’s five-year track record of upside surprises (averaging 23%) and YTD outperformance (AAPL +7.1% vs S&P 500 +1.9%) as exposing the stock to near-term downside risk towards its $300 [200-day moving average]. As a result, JMP Securities is also dropping its Q2 2011 revenues estimates from $23 billion to $22 billion. What do you guys think of the whole ordeal? Let us know in the comments below! As usual, stay tuned for the latest tech news and info by following us on Twitter and/or subscribing to our RSS feed. [Source: WSJ] Authors:

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