Shares of Apple Inc. AAPL, -1.59% sank 1.7% in afternoon trading Thursday, putting them on track to close below a widely watched chart level for the first time in five months.
The stock has dipped below the 50-day moving average (50-DMA), which many Wall Street technicians use as a guide to the short- to intermediate-term trend; the 50-DMA currently extends to $110.358 according to FactSet. The last time the stock closed below that line was April 21 as it recovered from the post-COVID-19 selloff, which was about two-months after the first post-COVID sub-50-DMA close on Feb. 24. Meanwhile, Apple’s 50-DMA is still rising, as it ended Wednesday at $110.06. MKM Partners Chief Market Technician JC O’Hara wrote in a recent note to clients that “it is more important to monitor the slope of the moving average” than the level of the average. It may be worth noting, that the shares of the other trillon-dollar market capitalization companies — Microsoft Corp. MSFT, -1.04%, Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, -2.25% and Alphabet Inc. GOOGL, -1.65% — have been below their 50-DMAs all week, and their 50-DMAs are also all declining, with Amazon’s and Alphabet’s turning lower Thursday and Microsoft’s turning lower on Sept. 11. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 SPX, -0.84% dipped below its rising 50-DMA earlier in session before bouncing back above it.