Gregg Thurman on This week's Apple trading strategies (4/27-5/1/26) - 'The strategy calls for quarterly Call Spreads. However, when I bought this tranche expiry would have fallen in June. June, historically, is the lowest month post January earnings, so I bought a month further out. As it happens July is the lead month (historically) of a 6 month rally. During this period, again historically, AAPL rallies 20%+ from the summer low that occurs two weeks before to the week post the July 4th week. I learned of this phenomenon from a CNBC talking head. Curiously, none of the other talking heads followed up on his observation. Curious I back tested 5 years and found his observation had strong credibility so I back tested it to 2010. I didn’t go any further back because of the market disruption in 2009 and 2010 post the bank meltdown. At the time I bought AAPL was trading in the mid $250s. My Spreads require that AAPL remain above $230 through to July expiry. ROI is 30.1%. I posted last week that I was going to Close position early when AAPL printed $275 (which felt was imminent). We are so close to earnings now that I have decided to wait until after earnings. After Closing this position I will repurchase a July position maintaining a 30% ROI. Currently that would be $250/$255 Call Spreads. Breakeven would be about $253.90. It’s possible, but I don’t think probable the AAPL will slip that much after earnings and guidance for the June quarter.'
on This week's Apple trading strategies (4/27-5/1/26) - 'Gregg, what expiration dates are you choosing?'
on Patrick McGee blames Apple's Tim Cook for empowering China - 'Bethlehem Steel was listed on the exchange from 1906-2002. Its delisting wasn’t $aapl fault.'
on This week's Apple trading strategies (4/27-5/1/26) - 'So – will the DOJ now come after Apple for using an unapproved method of execution? 🙂'
on To what AI party, exactly, is Apple late? - 'Time for fun speculation on the timing of the Ternus transition announcement. The Open Source MLX framework makes Apple silicon the heir apparent for the next generation of AI, with Ternus paddling out to those Monster waves. MLX provides an alternative to CUDA. (How that plays out is way beyond me.)'
on To what AI party, exactly, is Apple late? - 'My workplace uses Gemini, and it’s proven its worth for constructing and troubleshooting simple integration tasks, though it’s not perfect. I’ve had to steer it in the right direction, but if you know what you’re after and are vigilant, then you can extract real benefits. Just don’t get complacent. I also pay $20 for Gemini on my iPhone, where I use it to brainstorm about things like finance and personal health. Again, this requires care, cause it will always validate your reasoning, even if it’s flawed. It’s ideal for simplifying technical items like balance sheets and medical records, but proposed personal solutions are strongly associated with confirmation bias. When this occurs, which is always, I end up challenging the info with a separate question, to which it will offer a new solution that will appeal to a new bias. It’s more persuasive due to its ability to charm the user, something that human specialists often lack because they are either too busy or just not very personable. For $20 or less it’s a great sounding board, but whatever it’s becoming, it’s never going away. If Apple gets it right, look out!'
on To what AI party, exactly, is Apple late? - 'It’s all a question of where the magic of surprise and delight can be executed. If Apple can pull it off locally with the free-range LLMs, then oh boy. But that surprise and delight is different for that 7B than it is for the 5M prosumers. So which demographic will be a better payoff for Apple? Which demographic is more durable over the long run?'
on To what AI party, exactly, is Apple late? - 'Privacy is a human right. Even more so after all of this AI starts flying around like gnats at the landfill. Apple has been way ahead of this entire AI movement by not playing into the hype and hysteria. I’m not seeing layoffs at Apple. Just retirements and newer faces taking over.'
on 'Apple is about to burst the AI bubble' (video) - 'And would it be super cheap, efficient and private for companies to create Mac mini AI server clusters in house providing all the AI power they need – without any data in the cloud?'
on To what AI party, exactly, is Apple late? - 'Happy to be in that 7B category. Mebbe once a week I come up with a question where an AI-enhanced search engine would be useful. But until LLMs get a lot more trustable and document their sources, I’ll stay in the “silent majority”. 🙂'
on 'Apple is about to burst the AI bubble' (video) - 'Brandt is focused on in-house, on-device AI for enterprise. Sending business data to an outside center holds all sorts of security problems. He also talks some in other videos about how things like complex Excel spreadsheets can be confusing to AI. If companies start buying up Mac hardware to develop their own AI apps, and then can deploy them on company mobile devices, Apple gains a whole new market that Android simply cannot fill.'
on This week's Apple trading strategies (4/27-5/1/26) - 'Upvoted. [Replying to Gregg, but the linkage got messed up.] Haven’t watched the video, though I may try later. 56 minutes is too long while branching (in Greg’s proposed silver underwear). My counter proposal/question is this: What if, with the Neo and Mac Mini, Apple starts to become interesting to enterprise, and the ratio changes from 70 private / 30 enterprise to 50 private / 50 enterprise because Apple finally cracks the enterprise juggernaut? Doing lazy intellectual approximations: If “70” = 70 million units and “30” = 30 million units. If that goes to “50” = 70 million units and “50” = 70 milllion units, you’ve got a 40% increase in units sold. That would be nothing to scoff at, and I think Enterprise has a whole lot more units to sell yet, just maybe not overwhelmingly to Apple.'
on Mark Gurman: The foldable iPhone is John Ternus' baby - 'Gruber has a recent albeit self-praising post dissecting Gurman’s missteps in predicting when Ternus would move into the CEO role and the face-plant that was Srouji departure from Apple. Maybe Gurman’s sources are better now. Of course Ternus, as HW head, guided the foldable iPhone. Yes, makes sense to let Ternus lead Apple into this new era. But a new subcategory of an existing product line is the future of Apple? No.'
on This week's Apple trading strategies (4/27-5/1/26) - 'Two Dans. I’m trying really hard to listen to this interview, but Dan Nathan the interviewer is talking three times as much as Dan Ives. He can’t shut the hell up and let Dan Ives answer his questions without interrupting him! Regarding John Ternus taking over in September: MY TAKE I think the timing is perfect. Why? Because Ternus is Apple’s hardware guy, and in September Apple is coming out with what is arguably the most dramatic hardware change to the iPhone since the larger iPhone: the foldable iPhone. So Ternus gets to take the stage and introduce his new baby as he takes over as the new CEO in September. Makes a lot of sense to me. Plus, announcing it just before this April 30th ER suggests two things: 1.) It’s going to be a good ER. Certainly the best time for a company to change their CEO, instead of the alternative. 2.) It also gives plenty of time for the media to digest the change without wrecking the stock price. There will be another ER before he actually takes over – and then another one immediately after he takes over. Again, perfect timing. I would imagine both John and Tim will both be on that conference call. Not to mention, Cook is 65 years old and John Ternus is 51. Anyone who doesn’t think age matters, just has to look at Washington DC. Where once ensconced in a cushy job, the nation’s most myopic deadwood and senile refuse to leave before dying. I like Dan Ives, so I’m going to go back to the podcast now… and will try to listen to the rest, even with the interruptions.'
on This week's Apple trading strategies (4/27-5/1/26) - 'Any of the scenarios envisioned above will require that Apple (and its suppliers) further ramp up the production of all necessary components and their assembly into final products. Almost all of this is currently performed in Asia. Execution therefore requires – demands – no major geopolitical instability in Asia. IMO, this is the one factor that could derail the optimistic future that otherwise lies ahead for Apple.'
on This week's Apple trading strategies (4/27-5/1/26) - 'Fred, I certainly hope you’re right! But that requires with the stock market valued at $45T that the average institutional and retail investor will have to accept ~25% of their portfolio will be in AAPL. Seems there’s many obstacles to that. Anecdotal, but my network is littered with people burned by AAPL over the years and reluctant to invest again (beyond index and similar funds), which only increases the necessary holdings for those that will. We’re sitting at a paltry return and significant volatility since Dec ‘24 in a market that’s been on fire. I hope you’re right and we make up some ground. Certainly hope earnings next week will be good to us!'
