AAPL is positioned for an upside gap fill due to resilient market share, strong device performance, and its role as a safety trade; speaker is long.

EKS, reminding us that today is Tim Cook's last day as the CEO of Apple. So, we'll see how Apple trades here today. I don't think it forbods anything. Uh I know we're waiting for the Apple conference on the 9th.

They're going to talk about the folding phone, which John Turnis developed, by the way. Um, so we'll see. I I don't I don't think we're here to expect anything from Apple today.

I think we're just kind of gearing up for the September 9th event.

Next year we've talked a lot about Apple and actually I want to go back to the Apple chart because I think we talked about this last week but it might have been very quick and we were covering a lot of other things.

So I just want to make sure I get this on the record again.

But I'm looking at this Apple chart and I cannot help but think that we have a potential gap fill coming above. Here's what I'm thinking. We are basically testing the gap right now here today.

In fact, we're at 31863 here in the pre-market. So, we're actually a little bit lower than the closing price, 3/10.

But to me, if we end up breaking this, this thing sure looks gappy up to about 338. Now, we've done a real good job holding above the 20, holding above the 50. We have a nicely pitched up 200. the 50 is really kind of in no no danger of maybe rolling over and and producing a death cross here to my eye, especially the the the gap was created by the earnings here for Apple and the earnings weren't terrible.

So to my eye here, especially as we go into the holiday season here, we talked about the pull through on some of the phones as Apple raises their price in accordance with some of the memory price hikes.

I'm expecting more good numbers from Apple for not just the iPhone, but a lot of their other devices. Remember, the Macs are doing really well. I actually expect a slight bump in iPads, and I think they're going to talk about wearables in their September 9th.

I wouldn't be surprised if that had a little bit of a boost, too.

Now, I know the big thing here with Apple's, oh, they botched AI. Well, actually, they also didn't spend hundreds of billions of dollars on AI, and as a result, that kind of turned them into the safety trade here.

I still think you have a net possible positive, Apple coming out with some feature or some device that works natively with AI that makes this real desirable. So, just looking at the chart here before we dive into the news story, this to me looks like a potential gap fill to the upside.

If I have I I am long Apple, full disclosure. So it if I make more money as this stock goes up, just know that. But if I didn't have a position here, I would be more inclined to trade this to the upside than the downside.

Now, the piece of news I have for you here, global phone shipments drop, except Apple's position for record iOS market share gain. How about that?

Apple, ticker APL, remains in focus, not only because it's Tim Cook's last day, but also because its resilient US smartphone position contrasts with growing pressures across the global handset market from rising memory costs.

Apple shares edged lower in Monday's Apple has maintained its US smartphone shipment share yearover-year in the second quarter of 2026 even as volumes eased following the iPhone 17 launch in the first quarter.

Its market shell share fell four percentage points sequentially and that was according to Counterpoint Research.

IDC expects the global smartphone market to shrink sharply in 2026 as soaring memory cost raises prices and pressures lower-end devices. Apple, Samsung, and Huawei appear better positioned to navigate the downturn, while Android shipments are projected to fall 24.3% as manufacturers pull back from less profitable entry-level devices.

Apple shipments are expected to decline just 1.3%, helping iOS reach a record 23.6% market share.

So despite the global smartphone uh pullback because of the memory prices, it appears that big mama Apple is once again positioned to be in the best possible shape. This has been my whole life following Apple has been this.

It has been Apple is always better than its counterparts. Even though I like the Android phone more, Apple always seems to be positioned correctly. I expect this to be no different and I think that the chart is quite conducive to a move up if we do end up getting that.

we are expecting I think more wearables coming out of Apple's conference on September 9th. Remember this is going to be John Turnis' first one. He's a hardware guy. I think there's talk about like either a necklace or a pendant or something that you uh can wear on your lapel that might have embedded cameras in it.

Um, and also microphones for the purpose here of of maybe translating and doing other stuff using AI.

Um, seeing some Apple puts get bought. Very interesting. Apple had watched for that Friday intraday high 322. Sorry. 13

Same with Apple.