Our bellwether of bellwethers, the only stock that matters, has ample headroom to generate plenty of bullish buzz en route to the trendline shown (inset). If it were to be hit within seven or so trading days, that would occur at around 144.28, give or take perhaps a dime. My gut says there is a better chance AAPL will fail to reach the line than overshoot it, but we’ll suppress such thoughts and rely on price action alone to provide trading opportunities as they occur. Here’s a perspective to make the task easier — one that looks capable of yielding some juicy ‘mechanical’ buys if we should get a nasty pullback or two on the way up. ______ UPDATE (Jan 23, 8:51): DaBoyz goosed AAPL into a spasm that nearly reached the trendline in mere hours, not the 5-7 days I’d estimated. Let’s try to get short near the trendline if the rally resumes: Today only, if the stock is trading for 144.10 or less, bid 0.45 for four 27 Jan 140 puts. You can take up to 0.04 discretion (i.e., pay up to 0.50) as long as your bid does not exceed the mid-price of the option’s bid/asked. _______ UPDATE (Jan 24, 7:36 p.m.): Bid 0.32 for the puts today, day order, same conditions but with no discretion on price. If you buy them, immediately offer half for 0.65, g-t-c. This is a longshot bet but hardly farfetched. _______ UPDATE (Jan 26, 1:11 p.m.): AAPL topped on an opening-bar short-squeeze a penny from the current target and three cents from the trendline I’ve been headlining for the last few weeks. The latter was an estimate, but the result was sharpened by two cents using the minor ABCD pattern shown here. I’ve been too busy to stay on top of the put trade, which I adjusted twice. Although the 140 puts I suggested initially were no longer playable because of time constraints, the 142s went from 0.41 yesterday to a high of 2.68 today. There appears to be almost no interest in trading AAPL, but I’m not keen on taking it off the sheets, since the stock remains a perfect bellwether for reading the stock market correctly. If I were to remove AAPL, I could substitute a symbol of more interest to subscribers. See my comments in the chat room concerning addiction to option trading.
AAPL – Apple Computer (Last:142.63)
