Apple, as you no doubt know, held its annual Macworld Expo Keynote today, and if you’re reading this, you already know about the iPhone and AppleTV. You probably also know that, historically, Apple’s stock runs up before the keynote, Steve Jobs comes out and announces a bunch of cool new products, and the stock promptly takes a dive. It’s pretty much a given: everyone buys AAPL until just before Steve walks out on stage, and then they sell.
I decided to track Apple’s stock today throughout Steve’s keynote to see how things went this time around. No need to keep you in suspense: AAPL had a huge day, up $7.10 (8.44%). But that’s not the interesting part.
What’s fascinating is watching the pattern of rises and falls as various announcements and events occur. Here’s how I saw things, with a chart of the day for easy following. AAPL opened at $85.60. This is our baseline. All times below are Pacific Time; pricing and times are approximate, and based on E*Trade’s charts and my notes.
Pre-Keynote: The stock is generally rising. At about 8:42 AM (about 20 minutes before Steve is scheduled to come on stage), AAPL is up to $87.75. This is the high-point prior to Steve’s expected appearance.
9:08: Steve walks onto stage, “We’re gonna make some history together today.” $87.68
9:22: Steve says “This is all we’re gonna talk about the Mac today”. Stock price plummets to $85.52
9:26: New iTunes commercials finish. $85.58
9:28-9:40: Apple TV (nee iTV) introduced, demoed. Price bounces around. High $85.78
9:40: Steve shows Apple.com teaser image, talks about a “revolutionary” new product. $86.03
9:42: “iPod with touch screen; Phone; Internet Communicator”. $86.72
9:48: “Get rid of all these buttons, just make a giant screen”. $88.25
9:50: “iPhone runs OS X”. $87.56
9:52: Steve starts his description of iPhone in general. $88.20
9:56: Start of iPhone “iPod” Demo. $87.96
10:04: Start of iPhone “Phone” Demo. $87.88
10:16: Steve starts his description of iPhone “Internet Communications Device”. $89.62
10:18: Start of iPhone “Internet Communications Device” Demo. $89.67
10:26: Prank-calls Starbucks, orders 4,000 lattes to go. $90.00
10:32: End of demos; Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt makes “applegoo” joke. $90.49
10:48: Pricing and Shipping information. $92.35. Stock price generally drops from here until the end of the keynote.
10:54: Cingular Wireless CEO reads from index cards. $90.99
10:56: Market for mobile phones is “just about a billion”. $90.64.
10:58: Renaming company to Apple Inc, no more “Computer” $90.64.
11:04: Steve ends, no “One more thing…”, introduces the musical guest. $91.40
The stock price then continued to rise for the rest of the day, with a few dips. Know who I feel sorry for? All those other “smartphone” makers, like Research In Motion (Blackberry), Palm and Motorola. Here’s why: a chart showing AAPL, RIMM, MOT and PALM. The Blackberry folks took it especially hard on the chin.
That’s an $11.16 (7.85%) squeeze for the Blackberry makers. Palm got a 5.69% ($0.84) spanking. Motorola survived the best, losing only $0.34 (1.83%).
And this is just the first day.
Technorati Tags: AAPL, Apple Keynote, Macworld Expo, Stevenote, stock price
Nice theory. Normally works. Here’s why the now is different than the past. Apple Store shipping times are way up on two of Apple’s profitable products (iMac 1-4 days and Powerbooks- 7-10 days on these really profitable models!- normally less than 24 hours and it’s been a while since Apple was that company that always had production supply/demand imbalances). I took a trip to SFO from Denver two weeks ago. I saw iPhones in many hands at DIA and tons of people looking at them in Boulder Apple Store. In SFO there were iPhones everywhere and downtown, the Apple store was a mob scene on a weekday afternoon -people were lined up two deep at the iPhone table- it’s like the multi-touch display has some kind of hypnotic effect on people and they don’t want to let it out of their hands! Apple forecast a quarter lower than last- based on these observations, my conclusion is NO WAY! and they are going to have a monster quarter compared to guidance and the stock is going to Kramer predicted levels- Don’t forget that Leopard is due sometime in October, right around the earnings reporting time in case the results alone are not enough! I had Apple at 17 and sold at 23 using the standard Apple trade scenario discussed- I’ve been buying and selling since. At 143+ I’m thinking the buy and hold people are winning more than me by about 3 times over!. Normally I would have a stop loss in, to lock in the profit, but not this time as I am afraid I won’t get a chance to buy it as low and I’ll miss the Quarter and Leopard timing. If I’m wrong (and I would really kind of like it if I am), I’ll be buying more about a week or two out following the typical price response to an announcement. Think it through and check out what the apple store is telling you!