It truly is been a tumultuous year for tech businesses, as investors flee expansion stocks in the experience of growing desire fees and other headwinds. Apple has held up better amid the tech carnage, with its year-to-date losses at 21% down — smaller sized than the in general Nasdaq index , which is down all over 30% in the exact time period. The firm’s China publicity has become an Achilles’ heel for a stock that has held up as other key names, like Alphabet and Microsoft , lost aid and broke to new lows for the yr. Apple is 6.5% of the S & P 500 market cap. Continue to, the tech large has been hit by Covid-19 lockdowns in China and protests throughout the place. Two investors confronted off on CNBC’s ” Avenue Signals Asia ” on Wednesday to make a case for and towards acquiring the stock. Bear scenario: growth set to be ‘harder’ Jordan Cvetanovski, main investment officer of Pella Resources Administration, thinks that expansion for Apple is “likely to be more durable and more difficult and more durable heading forward.” “They depend a whole lot on the customer continuing to encourage them selves that an Apple 14 is a must have in excess of an Apple 13,” he said. “The truth is, the even larger you are — to grow at that 7%, 8% clip — at some point … it’s likely to be significantly a lot more hard and you have to depend greatly on pricing and inquiring extra and additional of your customers to spend much more and far more for the products and services. And at some stage there is likely to be some pushback,” he stated. Cvetanovski extra that as a extremely major business, it “requires a great deal to transfer the needle.” He conceded that it’s a “superb” enterprise with regular hard cash flows, and a great different to “highly-priced” consumer staples these types of as Nestle . “It’s unquestionably one to own at a specified valuation. I believe the valuation demonstrates how safe and sound it is and how it truly is perceived to be safe. I just think small term, medium phrase, there are some threats and there may be improved alternate options out there,” he stated, including there are businesses “to some degree as protected as Apple” that are expanding. Bull case: Apple is ‘solid as a rock’ Apple is a firm with “a large amount of area for innovation,” claimed Ross Gerber, CEO of financial commitment management organization Gerber Kawasaki. Gerber believes that owning Apple is “solid as a rock.” “Tesla, every single working day I have to deal with volatility. I acquired to offer with what Elon does each and every day. And then I individual Apple, and it really is like, it is strong as a rock,” he stated. Gerber claimed that when assessing the danger-reward of the stock, it nonetheless “helps make for a very good spot in a portfolio.” He included that Apple’s a “cashflow king” that distributes its capital “tremendous successfully” to shareholders. “If I can get paid in excess of 10% on an financial investment like Apple with these types of a amount of margin of safety, it seems to me like yeah, it’s not an ASML which is developing at, let us say, 30% but has threat,” he mentioned, referring to the Dutch semiconductor agency. “So you have these various shares in your portfolio, but I feel Apple fits that element of your portfolio beautifully.” “And that is why Warren Buffett owns it for 40% of Berkshire Hathaway,” Gerber added. — CNBC’s Patti Domm contributed to this report.