Apple's stock is surging after reporting first-quarter earnings, but Wall Street analysts were more breathing a sigh of relief than cheering the results.

Apple's stock was up 5% in premarket trading Wednesday, a day after the earnings report.

The company said iPhone sales dropped 17% in the quarter, but upbeat commentary from CEO Tim Cook on China and wearables, along with a big stock buyback, stopped analysts from getting more negative on the stock, and in a few cases, even caused them to raise their price targets.

"Apple's fiscal Q2 was fine," said Bernstein's Toni Sacconaghi, Institutional Investor's top-ranked analyst on the stock. "While numbers for FY 19 are likely safe and the stock tactically tends to outperform around this time of year, we note that Apple's valuation has already returned to its peak from last year, next year's iPhone cycle appears uninspiring, and this cycle's temporary price cuts will not resolve the fundamental question circling the stock, i.e. the structural lengthening of iPhone replacement cycles."

On China Cook noted, "We certainly feel a lot better than we did 90 days ago. ... We like the direction we're headed with iPhone and our goal now is to pick up the pace."

Trade-ins and lowering prices on iPhones may have eased China fears, according to analysts at Jefferies.

"While we acknowledge that a 22% decline in China revenue is far from a resurgence, Tim Cook did highlight that iPhone declines in the last few weeks of March were significantly smaller than they were to start the quarter," analyst Timothy O'Shea said.

O'Shea and Sacconaghi have just hold ratings on Apple. Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo are also neutral stock.

One analyst is staying bullish while acknowledging he takes a lot of heat for his call on the stock.

"It is no surprise that we get a lot of pushback on our buy rating on Apple given 1) its large market cap, 2) iPhone sales have entered negative growth 3) Android has more market share and less expensive average selling points and 4) investors feel innovation at Apple has been lacking," Citi's Mark May said.

"Simply put Apple's results and outlook across most metrics were clearly better than expected."

The reaction from analysts at Credit Suisse was a bit more muted.

"While 'less bad' is a significant improvement from the rough start to the year, we remain neutral as we see a long road to recovery for iPhone with a ~1yr jump in the net replacement cycle in CY19 and further extension ahead of 5G in 2H20," they said.

Here's what else analysts say about Apple's earnings report: