The iPhone maker is brushing off a top- and bottom-line win
Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) stock is brushing off a fiscal first-quarter top- and bottom-line beat, last seen down down 2% to trade at $183.15, due to shrinking China sales and jobs data stateside. Analysts are already making moves, with three cutting their price targets, including Piper Sandler to $190 from $205. Meanwhile, Monness Crespi Hardt and Jefferies hiked their objectives to $200 and $205.
AAPL earlier traded at its lowest level since November. The shares have since trimmed those losses, and are now testing their 200-day moving average, a trendline that caught pullbacks earlier last month. Year-over-year, AAPL maintains a 21.5% lead.
Call traders are viewing this pullback as an opportunity. So far today, 243,000 calls and 183,00 puts have been exchanged, or triple the intraday average volume. Most popular is the 2/2 185-strike call, where new positions are being opened. This means traders expect more upside for AAPL by the time these contracts expire at the close.
Short-term options traders have been more bullish than usual. This is per Apple stock’s Schaeffer’s put/call open interest ratio (SOIR), which ranks in the low 17th percentile of annual readings.