AAPL Update

I took a put position in AAPL on 1/17  using March $430's and have stuck with it. AAPL has seen a sharp decline starting yesterday afternoon.

 Here's the decline and it's on heavy volume.

 Here's what I liked about the AAPL short trade. In October, AAPL set new all time intraday highs as well as closing highs. The December wedge is bearish, but as AAPL is probably one of the closest watched stocks and the wedge was very apparent, I knew the probability of a breakout of the wedge was very high, the probability of the break out also being a sucker's move was also very high as this is repeated over and over again in the market, taking advantage of what technical traders still hold to be the gospel of technical analysis and turning it against them.  On Jan 9th AAPL posted a new all time high on an intraday basis, but couldn't hold it. A new all time high should have sent AAPL shooting up on the breakout, instead it failed. Then on the 17th a new closing high was made on low volume and a weak, small bodied daily candle, again, the interest in buying a new high was not there. Since it has set another new high, again on a very weak day. There's been no follow through, no increased volume, no impressive 1-day moves. Something is out of character for AAPL.

 Here's the recent activity in 3C and it was negative on the 17th as it is now.

This was the real kicker though, the long term 60 min chart and comparing the October new high to the recent new highs, 3C is much lower locally and on a relative basis between October and now. This means whatever the amount of institutional money in AAPL back in October, right now at several new highs that have now failed, the institutional commitment is much smaller. Retail isn't going to take AAPL to new highs alone, AAPL needs institutional interest and thus far, it isn't there.