This Morning: Gauging NFLX’s ‘Paradigm,’ AAPL Bulls Warn You About the Quarter

Here are some things going on this morning in your world of tech:

If it’s a Tuesday, which it is, it must be time for some reflection on Apple’s (AAPL) prospects. The stock has reversed yesterday’s gains, down $1.70, or 0.4%, at $461.88.

Gene Munster with Piper Jaffray reiterates an Overweight rating and a $767 price target, writing that although March-quarter results will miss estimates for revenue and iPhone sales, and there will be only a modest increase in the dividend, and the June forecast from the company may disappoint, nevertheless he thinks that the company will be reaching a turning point with both events, and that earnings growth should pick up the latter half of this year. He had been thinking there would be an April product event for Apple, but not thinks that’s unlikely.

But Oppenheimer & Co.’s Ittai Kidron, reiterating an Outperform rating, cuts his price target to $550 from $600, after cutting estimates, arguing iPhone sales may be hurt by rumors of a mid-year product debut, wiring “We believe Apple faces a compressing iPhone upgrade timetable.”

“Some supply-chain and blog commentary suggests a potential July/August refresh. Competitively a positive, but the unsubstantiated news likely hurts NT vol. anticipating the upgrade.”

Shares of Netflix (NFLX) are up $6.72, or 3.7%, at $187.51, as Pacific Crest’s Andy Hargreaves raised his price target on the shares to $225 from $160, arguing the company can increase its domestic subscriber number to 46 million from 43 million.

Hargreaves, who has an Outperform rating, made an appearance on CNBC this morning, declaring that there’s a “paradigm shift,” with outfits such as HBO increasingly moving in Netflix’s direction, and that “NFLX is essentially the best in the world at executing that model” in terms of content breadth and, increasingly, quality.

T-Mobile USA, which is merging with MetroPCS (PCS), is holding a media event in New York this morning as it continues to tout how the combined company is “not going to act like” a wireless company anymore, as its slogan puts it. The Wall Street Journal’s Thomas Gryta and Anton Troianovski late yesterday related how the company has decided to stop subsidizing device purchases, instead trying to offer lower monthly fees if consumers pay for the phone in full.

Shares of Dell (DELL) are up 3 cents at $14.54 as the company continues to contemplate competing offers from Carl Icahn and BlackStone Group (BX), at $15 per share and $14.25, respectively, as alternatives to the planned LBO of the company at $13.65.

Reuters’s Greg Roumeliotis and Soyoung Kim late last night noted that Carl Icahn yesterday said he would be willing to strike an alliance with BlackStone for a combined bid, and has been been in “preliminary talks” with the private equity firm. R.W. Baird’s Jayson Noland this morning reiterates a Neutral rating on Dell, raising his price target to $15 from $13, writing, “While the new proposals include certain caveats, we expect DELL to trade at levels around $15 per share.”