AAPL Position Update

Well it's not the Icahn/Ackman CNBC shouting match, but it in funny or whatever the appropriate word might be... "Ridiculous"? to watch two billionaire's have a spat over... TWITTER, just think about that a second, they are having a slap fight over Twitter! I think Ridiculous is the right word.

 Icahn responds to Gross...

 Now it's turning in to, "Who is more like Bill Gates", but at least Icahn was pretty much restrained and didn't come undone, I sure wouldn't want Gross as an enemy even if I was Icahn.

As you know AAPL reports for Q3 after the bell tonight, this might be a good time to take the just about double digit gains in the AAPL December $535 put, I have decided (so far) to stick it out, but that is subject to change if I see something that gives me good reason to cut and run.

 AAPL 1 min intraday isn't very telling at all, a little surprising considering earnings, I'm sure this will pick up later.

The 3 min chart is nearly perfectly in line with price on an intraday basis and that would be a downtrend for the timeframe we are looking at, but watch what happens when I take the EXACT same chart and zoom it out to scale to reveal the chart's trend...

 All of the sudden the very same chart shows accumulation in to the 10/9 lows which is a market wide theme  and it shows distribution or a leading negative divegrence at the 10/18 (Friday) which is also a market wide trend.

So AAPL looks VERY much like the broader market in 3C and price which just goes to show that the market is the main gravitational force on price movement of an individual stock, even AAPL so check out the market's probable trend before looking for specific trades, you'r probabilities go way up.

The 5 min chart shows the same leading negative divergence, I think if it showed something more positive and less like the overall market I'd suspect an AAPL leak. I'm not sure what consensus is for AAPL, but just being on the street, I'm going to guess they come in light on handsets with Samsung's Galaxy 4 taking away some business, I've been seeing a lot of them lately.

 This 15 min chart is probably the best reason I have for the put position, it's not meant to be a long term trend trade and the chart is leading negative and right around the 18th.

The larger chart where I think Icahn actually started shows a large "W" bottom that we followed with interest for months, first assuming it was a counter trend bounce and then when it widened it's base with the second "W" low, it appeared to be something more serious and I suspect that's a lot of ICahn and some other players noticing the change in character and guessing AAPL is oversold. The point is, the longer term trend at 4 hours is still in line, maybe that changes, maybe Icahn and Gross go at it over AAPL via Allianz, I have no idea, but this is why I'm not interested in a trend trade here or now.

I'll update you if I do decide to make any moves in AAPL before the close.