AAPL up 5% following earnings as investors respond to Q3 guidance and optimism over 2018 iPhones

AAPL saw its stock price climb steadily yesterday in the run-up to the company’s announcement of its Q2 earnings (calendar Q1), and once the numbers were known the price jumped sharply in pre-market trading to hit $174.21 at the time of writing. That’s up more than 5% on yesterday morning’s opening price.

While the Street (and the stock) have been reflecting soft June guidance, the big question now is what will the demand picture look like post June with a much anticipated three pronged smartphone product cycle around the corner and will this finally be the product catalyst to turn things in the right direction for Cook & Co? To this point, we continue to believe the Apple iPhone upgrade story for 2018/2019 is still intact and it’s time to take a deep breath as despite soft demand spots from the iPhone X coming out of China and the US over the last few months, the product cycle thesis out of Cupertino is delayed/elongated rather than gone forever in our opinion.