Trading Ahead of Apple’s New iPad
With the unveiling of Apple’s new iPad right around the corner and the positive response to Windows 8 just behind us, rumors and excitement about both products from two of techdom’s mightiest titans will be among the positives to play against the growing spring correction in stocks, a correction that has left few stocks unscatched.
Shares of Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) have closed lower for two days in a row, while Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) has pulled back by three, and both AAPL and MSFT are now trading at their lowest levels in more than a week. In fact, should these stocks trade lower on Wednesday, if traders decide to sell the news rather than bid shares higher, there’s a good possibility that Apple could trade in technically oversold territory for the first time in 2012.
For Microsoft, such follow-through to the downside would likely create the stock’s second oversold finish this year. The first, in mid-February, came as part of a sell-off during which MSFT closed lower for three out of four days. The stock finished higher by more than 3% the following day, trading at new, two-week highs.
Shares of Apple have not pulled back significantly since mid-December, when a four-day sell-off took the stock into technically oversold territory for two consecutive trading days and to their lowest closing level in two weeks. The rally from that oversold close was powerful. Apple closed higher for seven days in a row immediately afterward, gaining more than 7%.
Looking ahead toward Wednesday’s open, Apple has the higher quantified, short-term edge, of the two stocks, at just under half a percent, though both Apple and Microsoft will take neutral ratings of 6 and 7 out of 10 into Wednesday’s trading.
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David Penn is Editor in Chief of TradingMarkets.com