Apple had a bittersweet week in the stock market where it experienced both the highs and lows of the market tide. On one hand the company has been preparing for Apple Inc.’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone 6 release in China the date for which is getting closer and promises great sales and a healthy share of Chinese smartphone market. On the other hand analysts and tech bloggers have been worried about the morose pre-response that Apple Watch has been getting on the internet.
As expected, Apple’s iPhone 6 started a wild fire in China on the 10th of October; the company received one million pre-order sales within the first hour. Apple is expected to make major sales in China by the end of this year.
Apple also announced that it will start its sales in India starting from October 17, which will allow the company to further expand into Asia where low-end and local smartphone markets are extremely dominant. Apple has reserved 5 thousand handsets at Apple stores, multi-brand retail chains and e-commerce sites in the last two days.
GT Advanced Technologies, which was to be the major provider of the sapphire screens for some of the Apple Watches, filed for bankruptcy last Monday, which means Apple will have to find a new partner to work on their sapphire devices.
Carl Icahn, one of Apple’s largest stockholders, wrote an open letter to Apple’s CEO Tim Cook. Icahn said in the letter that Apple’s stock was currently trading at half the price of what its original value should be. He believes the original value to be $203. He also urged CEO Tim Cook to become more aggressive in its buybacks.
Apple Inc. started its trading week on Monday, October 6 and started trading at 99.95. At midday, Apple had gone up to 100.65, only to fall back to 99.42 moments later. The day closed at Apple trading on 99.62.
Next day, Tuesday, Apple opened at the market at 99.43 and improved a bit to 100.12. Later in the day Apple suffered a loss and went down to 98.73, closing the day at 98.75. The company has an overall loss of one percent during the day.
Third day at the market, Wednesday, Apple started trading at 98.76 and rose up to 101.11. The improvement didn’t last long and Apple came down to 98.31 during midday. At the conclusion of the day, Apple showed good improvement of two percent, closing at 100.80.
On Thursday, Apple started at 101.54 and went up to the week’s highest number 102.38. Later on it suffered a setback and came down to 100.61, but improved at the closing of the day and closed at 101.02.
Last day at the stock market, Friday, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) started trading at 100.69 and rose up to 102.03. A loss of two percent dragged the stock value back to 100.30 and the shares closed the week at 100.73.
It was yet another steady week where not much stock activity was seen. It will be interesting how the stock will respond to Icahn’s letter next week; so far there has not been any major influence. China sales also start next week, which is bound to reflect on the stock value.