Apple Computer

Bulls got nowhere near the 224.31 peak I'd said would need to be surpassed in order to clear a path to 232.30, a longstanding Hidden Pivot rally target that should have been easier to reach. Accordingly, we'll focus for now on the downside, which points to 209.23 (see inset). The stock would first need to take out the 215.76 midpoint support, which can be bottom-fished with a stop-loss as tight as 215.65. I'd suggest using 28th Sep 228 calls, which should be selling for around 1.00 with the stock around 215.76. This is a scalp-trade against the trend, and if it doesn't become profitable very soon after it is initiated, you should follow my exit plan. Incidentally, there was an interesting story in the Wall Street Journal out over the weekend that explained why Apple will face daunting challenges trying to get a foothold in Hollywood. The story somewhat corroborates a bearish think-piece by Andy Kessler that I've referred to here numerous times. Apple's cash cow, the iPhone, has saturated the market, but the firm seems clueless about what The Next Big Thing might be, let alone have a plan to become a dominant player in marketing it. For now, bigger, pricier smartphones are Tim Cook's one-trick pony. ______ UPDATE (Sep 24, 10:21 p.m. EDT): DaBoyz didn't have to take the stock down very far on the opening to trigger off a short squeeze, attesting to the confidence of buyers. They'll turn even feistier if AAPL can close above the 223.61 target shown in this chart. Use it as a minimum upside projection for Tuesday._______ UPDATE (Sep 25, 9:21 p.m.): Although they didn't achieve the 223.61 target, buyers made headway toward it. Here's a fresh chart that leaves a successful outcome in little doubt.

AAPL's latest wilding spree has died somewhat shy of a 232.30 rally target touted here earlier that should have been a piece of cake. I hesitate to infer this signals an end to the bull market, but it certainly deserves watching, since AAPL is not a stock accustomed to trend failures. If we were to look for a possible reason why, we need search no further than this headline atop a recent Wall Street Journal break page:  Apple's Phones Get Bigger, Pricier. That achievement, if you could call it that, is going to be crucial to the company's fortunes, given that smartphone sales account for two thirds of Apple's revenues. Steve Jobs Rolling in His Grave To say the Cupertino behemoth has lost its edge would be a charitable understatement; uber-innovator Steve Jobs is probably rolling in his grave. The latest iPhones are 15% pricier than last year's, averaging $949. The screens are bigger than ever -- not so much to entertain users as to make certain they see advertisers' messages, but good. In this way, cell phones have come to usurp the role of television, a medium conceived not simply to entertain and amuse viewers, but to aggregate their eyeballs and serve up those eyeballs to advertisers in categories, or "demographics," that suit sellers' needs. Smartphones can do this far better than TV ever did, tailoring ads not just to broad categories of consumers, but to individuals. How well does this business model work? Your editor is probably the wrong person to ask. I have a low-end, small-screen Android phone that can do nearly everything iPhone can do, and perform some tasks even better. I can't see why tens of millions of users would cough up nearly a thousand bucks for a new cell phone -- especially since most

AAPL exceeded a rally 226.26 target I'd drum-rolled by $3 last week -- not quite enough to make another big leg up a done deal. More immediately, the stock looks likely to continue falling to at least 217.70, the 'D' target of the nicely formed pattern shown in the inset.  A rally back up to the green line can be shorted ''mechanically' with a stop-loss at 225.37. I'd suggest near-the-money puts with about 4-12 days left on them and an initial stop-loss equal to a third of their purchase price.______ UPDATE (Sep 11, 5:12): The short squeeze off engineered weakness at the opening suggests DaBoyz are solidly in command, well able to take the stock still higher on Wednesday. If and when they push AAPL above the red line, look for a move to the 231.81 target shown. That would be a new all-time high.______ UPDATE (Sep 12, 6:14 p.m.): AAPL continues to turn skittish at midpoint resistance levels of different degree. The rally target flagged above remains viable nonetheless, but slightly altered: 232.30.  Corresponding midpoint resistance lies at 224.39.

AAPL's latest wilding spree has $10 farther to go before it hits something solid in the form of the 226.26 target shown.  That's a Hidden Pivot resistance, and it is sufficiently clear and compelling that we might expect a tradable pullback from within perhaps 0.10 - 0.20 points of it. Trading the upside using options will always be difficult, since market makers have a canny way of pricing puts and calls so that selling time premium yields at least somewhat better odds than owning it. In this case I'll suggest leveraging an edge of our own -- i.e., 'foreknowledge' of where, exactly, the rally is most likely to reverse -- and buying put options if and when the stock gets within 0.15 of the target (i.e., hits 226.11). Use the 220 strike with options that expire in 5-12 days. _______ UPDATE (August 30, 3:42 p.m.): Subscribers reported buying Sep 7 220 puts when AAPL hit my target, so I'll track four @0.60.  Some bought them for as little as 0.50, but I customarily use the worst fill reported -- in this case 0.61 -- for a cost basis.  For now, offer two of the puts to close for 1.20, good-till-canceled. Those of you who paid 0.50 could have doubled out on half, since the options subsequently traded as high as 1.04._______ UPDATE (August 31, 6:35 p.m.): Stop yourself out of the puts if they trade for 0.30. They got as low as 0.35 on Friday before finishing slightly higher. Regardless, my gut feeling is that the stock will top somewhere in this vicinity.________ UPDATE (Sep 4, 10:17 p.m.): AAPL traded above the 226.26 target, stopping out the puts, but the $3 overshoot was not sufficient for us to infer that the stock is ready to blast off for outer space.

Although this latest buying binge is unwarranted, ill-considered and reckless, it's hard for me to imagine AAPL not reaching the 214.30 target shown. That's slightly lower than the one at 214.58 given here earlier, and it can serve as a minimum upside objective for the very near-term.  However, we should be prepared to get short via put options if and when the stock gets there, since the Hidden Pivot looks sufficiently clear to repel a charge. ______ UPDATE (August 13, 7:14 p.m.): The engineered short-squeeze on the opening bar died a hair short of 211.00, a new all-time high. Subscribers who have ridden this rally with my 214.30 target in mind should be using a 'dynamic' trailing stop to keep risk/reward in a 1:3 relationship. That means with AAPL peaking today at 210.95, a 209.83 trailing stop would have been in effect. The target remains valid nonetheless, although we'll put it out of mind if the stock drops to 204.51. ______ UPDATE (August 16, 5:58 p.m.): Today's short-squeeze pushed the stock to within 49 cents of the rally target we've been using for the last couple of weeks. (With the stock trading $15 lower, I wrote as follows: 'It’s hard for me to imagine AAPL not reaching [this] target'.)  I hope subscribers made hay on the way there. And now, here's a chart that shows why I'm not very eager to short AAPL at these levels. The 226.26 target looks like an easy winner to me.

AAPL's $8 surge in after-hours trading has stalled in an interesting place, a hair from a midpoint Hidden Pivot at 197.66. A decisive penetration of that resistance would imply more upside to the 214.58 target shown. We'll probably know soon whether buyers have the moxie to push the stock a total of 12% higher on upbeat earnings news that came out after Tuesday's close. I have my doubts AAPL will reach the target -- but then, I've never been impressed with the company's overpriced hardware, nor with 'genius' support that could never explain why iTunes at times acted almost like a virus on Windows-based systems. "Smartphones Are Like Radial Tires..." But don't take my word for it. Here's what the always astute Andy Kessler had to say op-ed in the Wall Street Journal recently:  "Smartphones are now like radial tires. Everyone has one and they don’t wear out. Phone franchises are fickle. Ask Motorola or Nokia , if you can find them. One near-term sign of distress: Marketing tech products with splashy colors, as Steve Jobs did with tangerine iMacs almost 20 years ago, means the fun part is almost over. Apple hopes to make it up in services, but Google leads in maps, Netflix in video, and Uber in transportation. Apple is falling behind in most other growth segments. The company’s destructive seed is its desperate need for a new product category. It won’t be watches."  Even if there are good reasons for AAPL to make an important top here, I'll go with my charts. As noted above, if the stock can push decisively past 197.66, or close above it for two consecutive days, I'd infer that more upside to 214.58 is an odds-on bet. _______ UPDATE (August 2. 12:19 a.m.): The stock traded as high as 201.92 intraday,

Apple's flaccid behavior on Wednesday tripped a 'mechanical' buy at 174.65, a Hidden Pivot level shown in the chart as a green line. Although the stock looked awful, I will establish a tracking position nonetheless if I hear from at least two subscribers who did the trade. It would require a stop-loss at 172.44 that implies initial risk on four round lots of nearly $900. If the stock moves higher without breaching C=172.45, take profits on half the position at p=176.88, then hold the rest for a shot at the 181.26 target given here earlier. ________ UPDATE (March 8, 4:66 p.m.):  The trade has produced an $880 gain so far, although no one mentioned holding a position in the chat room. In any event, you should have exited half the position at p=176.88 per my instruction above.  Now, offer another round lot to close at 181.00, but make the order o-c-o with a 172.45 stop-loss on the 200 shares that remain. _______ UPDATE (March 10, 3:44 p.m.): The position racked up a further gain on Friday of $600 with a rally above the secondary pivot at 179.06. Sell another 100 shares when the stock opens Sunday night, keeping the last round lot for a shot at 181.00.  If you decide to hold onto it above that price, I'd recommended using a trailing stop no wider than $2.00. ________ UPDATE (March 12, 2:59 p.m.):  With this morning's thrust to 182.20, AAPL has maxed out all minor targets, including one at 182.06 that I hadn't mentioned previously.  It is shown in this chart, and I'd be surprised if buyers munch through it within the next 24 hours. If you held the stock from the green line and took profits as suggested, you'd have come away with a gain of around $1700 on

AAPL, the most valuable company in the world, looked unstoppable on Friday -- as though buyers were ready to jump on the stock no matter how badly the broad averages were getting pounded. It drew strong support on the first bar of the day, when its canny handlers opened the stock $2 beneath the previous day's close. Now, if it pushes easily past the 176.96 rally target shown, look for the broad averages to hang tough, inspired by AAPL's stalwart leadership. ______ UPDATE (March 5, 7:26 p.m.): Buyers did not exactly shred a path higher, but they did most of their buying above the red line, shortening the odds of a further rally to the 181.26 target shown. As long as the stock is moving higher, the broad averages will follow.

Can AAPL hold up the stock market?  The last upthrust was so powerful that the question is not so farfetched. My hunch is that there was a little bravado in AAPL's struggle against the tide on Wednesday. But if the stock were to fall into the range 171-175 and then turn sharply higher, that could supply the kick the broad averages need to reverse course.  Regardless, Pivoteers should focus on the prospect of a 'counterintuitive' buy if the stock rallies 2.40 points from just above the 174.12 low labeled 'A' in the chart. ________ UPDATE (Mar 1, 10:55 p.m.): AAPL once again looked impressive swimming against a strong tide.  We'll reserve our enthusiasm, however, until such time as the stock closes above 177.47 for two consecutive days. That would make a further ascent to 182.27 an odds-on bet. On the daily chart, here are the coordinates for the bullish pattern: A= 171.01 on 2/21; B= 180.62 on 2/28.