Trading Apple ahead of its annual developers conference
Apple’s stock could soon see a wave of positive catalysts, according to one trader.
Four things in particular make it a particularly attractive buy ahead of its June 7 worldwide developers conference, TradingAnalysis.com founder Todd Gordon told CNBC’s “Trading Nation” on Thursday.
- Fundamentals
Apple is expected to unveil new operating systems for devices including the Mac, iPad, Apple Watch and Apple TV at its annual developers conference, which Gordon sees as a possible boon for the stock.
Add in rumors of a new iPhone and redesigned MacBook Pro coming later this year, and the fundamentals largely support an upside move in the stock, he said.
“Apple has 30% of the 5G smartphone market right now and it’s growing,” Gordon said. “The Q2 earnings blew expectations away. They had double-digit growth rates across all product categories.”
- Market dynamics
Though rising Treasury yields have put pressure on the technology trade in recent weeks, that correlation may be weakening, Gordon said.
“After the initial move up in March of ’21, yields have gone nowhere. They’ve just gone sideways for two months,” he said.
“We might see a push up in interest rates, but I think the market is starting to expect that, and the initial shock of a sharp move up in rates won’t be as drastic as we see it continue to move up,” he said.
- Sector rotation
He says a chart showing the sector SPDR ETFs for financials, materials, discretionary and tech rotating in and out of favor is showing an improving outlook for tech.
“In late April into May we saw a very big move into financials and materials,” Gordon said. “We’re starting to see a really nice move into technology. As we head up into [the blue] quadrant, this is the improving quadrant. This is the early sign of a possible rotation back in.”
- Technicals
Apple’s stock has also been forming a pattern that plays into Elliott wave theory, a type of predictive technical analysis based on recurring price movements, Gordon said.
He said the stock has formed a five-wave pattern while consolidating that could signal a sharp upward move.
“It looks like we could begin to push higher from this consolidation pattern,” Gordon said.
“If we break below $116.20 in Apple, this pattern is invalid. I would use that as a stop loss,” he said. “I think the upside, using multiple projections that we use, gets you up just south of $200 in Apple. I think that could happen over the next six to nine months in Apple.”
Apple closed at $127.31 on Thursday.
“For those four reasons, I do think Apple is a buy with a very defined risk, only about $10 from current market prices,” Gordon said. “We could move up, say, $60, $70 from here.”
