iPhones are shown at the grand opening of a new Apple store in Los Angeles in November.
Mario Tama/Getty Images
Apple shares were one of the few bright spots as markets sold off sharply on Tuesday, with almost every other major tech stock trading in the red.
Susquehanna Financial Group derivatives analyst Christopher Jacobson points out in a research note that Apple shares had their widest outperformance versus the Nasdaq Composite index on non-earnings days in more than eight years. He theorizes that an increase in retail participation in the stock and related calls “may have helped to exacerbate” a flight-to-safety move that benefited Apple shares.
Traders and investors offered a few theories, including signs of strong demand and possibly diminishing supply constraints, on why Apple stock (ticker: AAPL) held up so well.
Fresh data suggest that Apple is seeing extremely strong demand in China for the iPhone 13 line. As Cowen analyst Krish Sankar pointed out in a research note earlier Tuesday, new data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology show that smartphone sales in the country rose 57% sequentially in October, with Apple unit sales up 820% from September to a record 10.8 million units, and 85% higher on a year-over-year basis.
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives added that based on retail and supply-chain checks, domestic iPhone demand over the Thanksgiving weekend appears to have been “robust.” He thinks investors view the stock as “a safety blanket name during this market turbulence.”
Asked about the rally in Apple shares, a trader at one major firm made the same point as Ives, saying that there is “euphoria” about the apparent high demand for Apple products over the weekend, with delivery times apparently declining for iPhone models in multiple markets.
Others speculated that Apple shares might be getting some added support from the company’s continued aggressive share repurchase program — Apple bought back $20 billion of stock in the September quarter.
Apple shares closed 3.2% higher Tuesday at $165.30, while the Nasdaq Composite fell 1.6% and the S&P 500 lost 1.9%. The stock early Wednesday is up another 1.6%, to $167.93, after trading as high as $168.45, a record high. Apple shares now sport a market cap of $2.755 trillion, pulling ahead of Microsoft
—which has a market cap of $2.516 billion—in the battle for the title of the world’s most valued public company. Microsoft shares on Wednesday are up 1.3%, to $334.91.
Write to Eric J. Savitz at eric.savitz@barrons.com
