Market Maker Manipulation on AAPL Gets Serious in 2024 | Don’t ignore this chart!

Be honest. How many of you thought that Apple (AAPL), Alphabet (GOOGL), and Tesla (TSLA) could collectively struggle while the S&P 500 continues to hit record highs and then keep breaking new highs? I’m not surprised at all. Because the development of a secular bull market is stubborn and money circulates when former leaders stagnate. This is one of the hallmarks of a bull market. They are incredibly resilient.

Today I want to focus on AAPL. Because AAPL is providing early signs that it may soon rejoin the bull market leadership. The daily chart is as follows:

If you look at the AAPL chart, it looks like this:

1. AAPL’s leadership ended with the emergence of a negative divergence in late 2023.
2. AAPL has been on a downward trend since 2024, beginning a period of market maker manipulation that saw AAPL fall nearly $13. However, overall over the past two months, AAPL is down $27 between the opening bell and the first 90 minutes of trading. In the last five hours of January and February, AAPL actually gained almost $15. In the afternoon, many buyers (market makers) were accumulating stocks, and retailers who were unaware of this were recommending selling during the weak morning hours.
3. The AD line continued to rise in 2024, highlighting this accumulation.
4. Price support near the 180 level is very clear.
5. AAPL broke during the trading session on Friday, but recovered in the afternoon and printed a doji, a form of reversal candlestick.

I think AAPL is poised to regain a leadership role soon that will benefit large caps and the major indices, but it is starting to pivot more and more toward small caps. I’m so bullish on small-cap stocks right now that I’ve decided to feature three great small-cap trade candidates in this week’s free EB Digest newsletter. If you’d like to learn more about these stocks and their significant upside potential, click here. Sign up for EB Digest with your name and email address. It’s completely free!

Happy trading!

Tom Bowley, Chief Market Strategist at EarningsBeats.com