Apple trading in advance of the iPhone 5 breaks the mold

In the past, shares rose on the rumor and fell on the news. Not this time.

Wondering what's going on with Apple's (AAPL) share price with a big iPhone announcement just around corner?

Andy Zaky has been tracking the trading patterns before and after Apple's special events on his Bullish Cross blog (now behind a paywall) for several years. He offers these observations (I quote):

• With the exception of the iPhone 1, Apple has sold off on every other iPhone announcement.  The sell-offs have been mild, however, usually only 1-2% at most.
• The stock is usually up pretty big in the two weeks ahead of the event. In fact, in the previous 4 iPhone releases, the stock was up between 2.5% and 18.1%. For the iPhone 4, we saw a 3.73% rise over the two week period ahead of the introduction.
• This time, the stock is down rather dramatically. Almost $17.00 from where it was trading at last Tuesday (2-weeks before the keynote).  So maybe that means this time Apple will rally?
• The other big thing is to notice that Apple's press events no longer seem to have the same impact they used to have.  Things have calmed down in recent years. For example, if you look at the 2008 - 2009 period, Apple was down on the event day 100% of the time. Moreover, it was down rather significantly -- almost 3% on average.
• But if you go to between 2010 - 2011, Apple is actually in the green more than half the time.  The average gain-loss has also tempered down a bit.  In most cases, Apple doesn't even move over 1% on these events.

Source: Andy Zaky

Source: Andy Zaky

Source: Andy Zaky