AAPL has trampolined $4, or 2.4%, after bottoming an inch from the 170.78 ‘Hidden Pivot’ target I’d been drum-rolling here for the last week. The stock was trading near $190 at the time the target was first disseminated. Friday’s low got close, hitting 171.85. But even when the stock opened higher on Monday, touching 175,  I repeated a warning that AAPL would still have to fall to 170.78 before it could turn around. This it did — coincidentally during an online ‘requests’ session I was conducting for subscribers. Some of them were able to buy stock or call options and to book substantial profits later in the session as the stock shot higher with barely a correction.

A Santa Dead-Cat Bounce?

The turnaround could prove significant for the stock market as a whole, since, if AAPL has made a bottom of at least temporary importance, so have the broad averages. The stock’s rally is still fragile, to be sure, but if were to continue for a few more days, exceeding a 181.47 peak recorded a week ago on the way down, we could confidently infer that the move is likely to get legs.  Even so, I would regard it as corrective and therefore unlikely to achieve new record highs. At best, it might energize buyers sufficiently to keep stocks buoyant for the rest of the year.

I will remain open-minded to other possibilities nonetheless, even if the increasingly worrisome downturn in housing and autos is already ample reason for bulls to do a whole lot more correcting before they resume their wilding spree of the last nine years. AAPL will remain the best stock to follow for hints about what is coming, since the company is the most valuable in the world, and because its share are owned by nearly every portfolio manager in the business.______ UPDATE (Nov 28, 6:13 p.m.): A tsunami of short-covering pushed the stock from the danger zone, clearing the way for the broad averages to ascend — half-way — to the moon. The rally targets 182.67 most immediately (15-min, A=175.21 at 11:30), but anything above that would make the stock a good bet to test some important peaks near 195 recorded two weeks ago before AAPL was hit with a second wave of selling. A subscriber reported making $1350 on a 200-share position taken near the 170.78 target where I’d said AAPL was likely to bottom. If you caught a piece of the action, please let me know in the chat room._______ UPDATE (Nov 29, 10:12 a.m.): The stock moved steadily higher overnight, topping 13 cents above the 182.67 target I’d forecast. AAPL then relapsed sharply at the opening bell, so far to 178.70, trapping bulls badly. It’ll take them a day or two to rebuild their already misplaced confidence._______ UPDATE (Dec 1): Use the pattern shown, with a 187.42 rally target, to guide you in the days ahead. The stock has already achieved enough loft to be out of the danger zone after bouncing last week from within a hair of the 170.78 Hidden Pivot where I’d told you to anticipate an important turn._______ UPDATE (Dec 3, 9:20 a.m.): Currently trading 184 off an overnight high of around 186, AAPL still has a ways to go to reach my 187.42 target. The stock is all but guaranteed to get there, given the way it gapped through p=182.23 overnight. Any higher would imply more upside to at least 188.95.