China is considering bans on iPhone usage in certain settings
Shares of
Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) are 3.2% lower at glance, trading at $177.06 after Bloomberg News reported China's plans to extend
its iPhone ban for state-owned corporations. The Wall Street Journal also recently reported similar prohibitions in the country, with iPhone and other foreign-branded devices facing bans in government agencies.
The news prompted an uptick in options volume, with the 646,000 calls and 595,000 puts traded today running at double the intraday average amount. What's more,
Apple stock is once again on Schaeffer's Senior Quantitative Analyst Rocky White's list of names that have attracted the most weekly options volume in the last two weeks. Coming in third place, AAPL saw more than 6.8 million calls and 4.4 million puts exchanged over the last 10 days, the favorite being the weekly 9/1 190-strike call.
Apple stock kicked this week off by touching $189.98, marking two-straight sessions where the $190 level stayed just out of reach. Amid the reports, Apple stock has pulled back, and its 140-day moving average is keeping today's bear gap in check. The trendline served as a safety net during the stock's pullback in August as well. Year to date, AAPL holds a roughly 36% lead.
