We recently forecasted the price levels where Apple would stop falling. We identified really big support around the $95 area.
The chart shows that Apple indeed stopped its fall right below $95.
Meantime, just minutes ago, Apple released its quarterly earnings. As summarized by MarketWatch:
For the three months ended Dec. 26, Apple said net income rose 1.9% to $18.36 billion from $18.02 billion in the year-ago period. Earnings per share rose more sharply, to $3.28 from $3.06, reflecting Apple’s active share-buyback program.
Revenue rose 1.7% to $75.87 billion from $74.6 billion in the same period a year earlier. That was the slowest rate of growth since June 2013–just before the introduction of the iPhone 5S.
Earnings and revenues rose, but sales stagnated. iPhone sales grew at the slowest pace since its introduction in 2007. The company said it sold 74.77 million iPhones in its fiscal first quarter ended Dec. 26, surpassing sales of 74.5 million units a year earlier. The less-than-1% increase fell short of analysts’ estimates of 76.54 million units in the quarter.
The key data point for investors is the company’s outlook. For Q1, “Apple said it sees revenue of $50 billion to $53 billion, well below estimated revenue of $55.47 billion from analysts polled by Thomson Reuters. At the midpoint of $51.5 billion, that would mark an 11% decline from the same quarter a year earlier, the worst such decline at Apple since the summer of 2001.”
The reaction in after-hours trading was moderate. The stock rose initially, but then came back to stabilize between $99 and $100.
We believe the earnings and outlook, combined with the chart setup, give a neutral rating to Apple.
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