In the market Tuesday, the usual float up program was running which always drifts the market up the day prior to Fed speak. The program got a little extra kick from oil being up on some Middle East comments but the $CL_F oil futures took a hard hit after the market closed when the API oil inventory numbers were released that showed a huge inventory build the past week.
The real story tonight of course, is AAPL's earnings. After the announcement, it took the standard whipsaw both directions as traders balanced the positive against the negative in the report and the consensus ended up taking AAPL two percent lower after hours as shown in the first chart below.
Next we take a look at the one-week chart with five-minute bars, shown just below, where we see that AAPL has actually been downtrending these past two days leading into its earnings announcement.
Lastly, taking a look at the longterm chart of AAPL, we see that it actually has been holding at a minor trendline the past few weeks waiting on earnings to determine if it will continue going lower and fulfill the projected drop from its recent head and shoulders top.
If the after hours activity holds true as an indicator, AAPL is more likely to resume its downtrend now but don't forget that it's Wall Street's darling and they will be defending it vigorously on Wednesday if the decline resumes.
Trade well my friends
Alan
