AAPL Stock Slides 6% On Forecast Miss: Retail Mood Turns Dim But Traders Urge A Closer Look

• Apple stock dipped overnight after the results announcement.
• Apple said September quarter sales would be between 9% and 11%, which is below analysts’ expectation of a 12% growth.
• Stocktwits sentiment for AAPL was ‘bearish.’

Apple shares dipped 6% in overnight trading ahead of Friday, after the iPhone maker issued a forecast that missed analysts' expectations.

Although retail sentiment on Stocktwits for AAPL turned ‘bearish,’ traders actively debated whether Apple’s guidance miss – largely driven by supply constraints and currency headwinds – actually pointed to a weakening business or whether the concerns, and the resulting stock selloff, were overblown.

Traders, Analysts Review Apple’s Forecast 

“$AAPL guidance looks weaker at first glance, but the details matter. FX headwinds and supply constraints appear to be weighing on the headline numbers, masking the underlying demand picture,” a trader wrote. 

Another said: “The earnings playbook with Apple is so simple. Wait until they come out and beat, MMs (market movers) tank it intentionally on low volume, retail panics and becomes exit liquidity, bears crow until they realize they just got trapped. And it legs higher. It’s so predictable at this point.”

Deepwater Asset Management managing partner Gene Munster echoed the view. “Doing the math, if not for FX and supply constraints, I believe the September revenue guide would have called for up 15% yy in September vs Street at up 12%,” he said in an X post.

Apple on Thursday said its sales growth in the September quarter would come in between 9% and 11%, below analyst estimates of roughly 12%. Gross profit margins will also fall just short of estimates.

Why Did Apple Issue Soft Forecast?

Supply constraints – mainly securing memory chips – have plagued the company for the past few quarters, which have made it difficult for the company to meet demand for iPhones, Macs and iPads, and which are also expected to get worse in the September quarter. 

“We expect foreign exchange to be a sequential headwind of about 2.5 percentage points to the year-over-year total company growth rate from the June quarter to the September quarter. Second, we expect the impact from supply constraints to increase significantly sequentially,” Apple’s Vice President Kaven Pareskh said in the company’s analyst call.

“However, we do expect iPhone revenue to be impacted by these foreign exchange headwinds and supply constraints,” he added.

Apple’s Results, Stock Show Strength

The forecast warning took the sheen off largely positive results for the June quarter. 

Apple’s revenue increased 16% to $109.4 billion and the company delivered an adjusted profit of $1.89, beating analysts’ estimates on both counts. iPhone sales grew 21%, continuing a hot streak for the iPhone 17, and Mac sales jumped nearly 30% thanks in part to the new entry-level MacBook Neo. Apple’s services unit sales were a sore point in the report

Notably, Apple shares have rallied over the past month, climbing even as other large technology stocks came under pressure amid mounting concerns in the AI race. As of its lost close, AAPL stock rose 15.2% in July and is up 23% year to date. In comparison, the tech heavy Invesco QQQ Trust Series 1 (QQQ) declined 7.2% in July but remains 11.5% higher year to date.

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