Apple stock has been on a tear, and nothing seems to be able to knock it down for long. When I see that kind of acceleration, I usually start thinking it’s time to sell. The thing is, with Apple stock, it might not be.
Apple stock (ticker: AAPL) has jumped 19% during the past month of trading, easily outperforming the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s 0.5% rise, the S&P 500’s 0.9% gain, and the Nasdaq Composite’s 0.04% advance. It’s an amazing move when compared with the overall market, and how little bad news seems to hurt the stock. It even goes up when nearly everything else goes down.
The gain also marks an acceleration for the stock. On Thursday, Apple was up 0.3% at $175.58, more than 15% above its 50-day moving average of $152.30. We looked at that hoping it would serve as a sell signal, but that’s not the case. During the past five years, Apple stock has gone on to advance 2% in the two weeks after trading 15% or higher above the 50-day moving average, and 3% in the month following it. The stock was higher one month later 28 out of 39 occurrences.
Even if we use only the first instance of the stock rising 15% above the moving average—we eliminated any that occurred with five trading days of the first close—the stock performed OK, with shares gaining 0.9% two weeks after the first instance, and 9% during the month after.
As much as we worry that Apple’s gains can’t continue in the long-run, at least based on recent history, Apple stock could have more room to run.
That doesn’t mean Apple stock can just keep running in perpetuity. While the 15% threshold didn’t result in losses, a 20% threshold did. When that happened, Apple stock has dropped an average of 3% over the two weeks following the instance, and 2.9% month after.
Apple stock can get too strong, after all. It’s just not there yet.
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