Apple Stock Price and Forecast: AAPL launch fails to excite

Apple stock traded lightly for much of Wednesday's session despite a strong product launch announced at its event day on September 14. The company announced a new iPhone with a much longer battery life, a bone of contention for many smartphone users. The new Apple iPhone will have up to 2.5 times more battery than its predecessor and also comes with a new camera and chip for faster processing. Apple also announced a new Apple Watch with a slightly larger face design and a new iPad with some new features such as a USB-C port and 5G capability. As ever the launch was slick and smooth, a hallmark of Apple presentations, but despite this the stock market was unimpressed and AAPL stock closed up a modest 0.6% yesterday to $149.03.  This was actually an underperformance by the stock as the major indices closed up nearer to 1% higher. Goldman Sachs has come out after the event to say the new launches are not making them rethink their forecasts and estimates. Many investors had been hoping the stock would get another push after the event. 

Apple 15-minute chart

Yesterday the stock opened lower before playing catch up for most of the day, pretty much in line with the main indices but all the time slightly lagging their performance.

Apple key statistics

Apple stock forecast

The stock still looks bearish in the short term when checking out the daily chart below. The long-term trend is obviously a different matter given how strongly the stock has performed since pandemic lows in March 2020, but the recent turn lower from all-time highs should concern short-term traders. Apple has retraced below the short-term moving averages, which we like to use as a guide to short-term sentiment. Now the stock has fallen to find suport at our trendline, which has been working quite nicely since July. This support is also close to the key level of $141.67. Below there a break can accelerate rapidly due to a lack of volume. Breaking $144.50 is probably going to be the last chance to hold it. Otherwise Apple will break $141.67 and then should move quickly to $134.

FXStreet view: Neutral at current levels, bullish above $155, bearish below $144.50.

FXStreet trading ideas: Buy around $147 with a stop at $145. Buy at $134 with a stop at $130. Buy at $124 with a stop at $120. Buy a $135 put on a break of $141.67 for one-week expiration as we would likely see a sharp acceleration due to lack of volume as discussed above. This needs to be done just as the stock is about to break as the move may be sharp, meaning the put will go up in price quickly if you are not quick enough.