iPhones are shown at the grand opening of a new Apple store in Los Angeles in November.
Mario Tama/Getty Images
Apple
shares were one of the few bright spots as markets sold off sharply on Tuesday, with almost every other major tech stock trading in the red.
Traders and investors offered a few theories, including signs of strong demand and possibly diminishing supply constrains, on why Apple stock (ticker: AAPL) held up so well.
Fresh data suggest that Apple is seeing extremely strong demand in China for the iPhone 13 line. As Cowen analyst Krish Sankar pointed out in a research note earlier Tuesday, new data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology show that smartphone sales in the country rose 57% sequentially in October, with Apple unit sales up 820% from September to a record 10.8 million units, and 85% higher on a year-over-year basis.
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Wedbush analyst Dan Ives added that based on retail and supply-chain checks, domestic iPhone demand over the Thanksgiving weekend appears to have been “robust.” He thinks investors view the stock as “a safety blanket name during this market turbulence.”
Asked about the rally in Apple shares, a trader at one major firm made the same point as Ives, saying that there is “euphoria” about apparent high demand for Apple products over the weekend, with delivery times apparently declining for iPhone models in multiple markets.
Apple shares closed 3.2% higher at $165.30, while the
Nasdaq Composite
fell 1.6% and the S & P 500 lost 1.9%.
Write to Eric J. Savitz at eric.savitz@barrons.com
