Yesterday, after the end of the main trading session, Apple published its report on its activities for the 1st quarter:

→ Earnings per share: actual = $1.53; expected = $1.505;

→ Gross income: actual = $90.75; expected = $90.36.

The better-than-expected report came as a relief to investors after reporting lower sales in five of the last six quarters. In addition, the following could give positive feedback to market participants:

→ Apple's forecast is that its iPad manufacturing and services business will grow at double-digit rates;

→ company investments in AI. “We think we're well positioned,” Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri told Bloomberg Television's Emily Chang. CEO Tim Cook is expected to outline Apple's artificial intelligence strategy at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference in June.

→ Apple Inc.'s big plan to restore investor confidence. It consists of a record $110 billion share buyback and a 4% dividend increase.

As a result, AAPL's price rose nearly 8% in post-market trading, exceeding $185 per share, although yesterday's close was around $173.

Technical analysis of the APPL chart today shows that:

→ if trading opens today at a price above $180, a significant bullish gap will form on the chart, which can serve as support in the future;

→ price dynamics suggest that the bulls are trying to break the downward trend channel (shown in red), and send the price further within the ascending channel (shown in blue), which begins in 2023;

→ with the B→C move being approximately 50% of the A→B move, this is a long-term bullish sign that allows us to evaluate the pullback from the important psychological resistance at $200 as a correction within the long-term uptrend.

According to TipRanks, the average analyst price forecast for AAPL stock is $200 in 12 months. But it's possible that AAPL's target price could be raised given recent strong fundamentals.

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