Data

Rumour has it... that AAPL stock drops every time a new Apple product is announced or released.

Let's find out if that's true.

Link to data set

Image of my 2019 AAPL stock data graph

Introduction

Apple releases come out a few times every year and I heard a rumor about how every time Apple announces or releases a new product, Apple stock would take a dive because everyone is just really unimpressed with Apple products nowadays. So I thought it would be interesting to study this generalization by looking at Apple stock trends and comparing them to their dates of releases and announcements to see if this rumor is true or false.

My interactive AAPL stock data graph

Data Visualisation

I’ve decided to utilize 3 different graphs for my data visualization, a candlestick graph, a line graph, and a lollipop graph. The candlestick graph is normally used in brokerage apps, encompassing the opening and closing price of the stock and the highest and lowest points as well.

It is a good way to display 4 different comparative numerical information and would help aid in seeing if the response for the particular products announced or released on that day was good or not.

As for the line graph, I feel that it would aid the viewer in showing the up and down trends more obviously of how the stock market does in their normal day-to-day based on the closing price. Lastly, the Lollipop graph represents the timeline of the apple products and each lollipop would state the products that are being announced or released.

The graphs do not reflect any exact stock values because the performance of the AAPL stock in the day-to-day is reflected in the colour of the candlestick graph, which is sufficient in correlating the products announced or released and the performance of the AAPL stock on that particular day.

2019 full AAPL performance graph
2020 full AAPL performance graph
2021 full AAPL performance graph up till September

Findings

Based on the graphs, these are the statistics I found for each year of release. In 2019, there was a tie between good and bad performances for releases and announcements throughout that year, at 8 counts each.

For 2020, there were more good releases than bad ones, at 10 for the former and 7 for the latter. Lastly, this year was not a good year for Apple, out of all the announcements and releases to date, 4 out of 5 performed badly. The one good release was the day that iPhone 13 was available for purchase, however, even the announcement event of the iPhone 13 did not perform well.

Bar graph of my findings

Insights

Based on the findings from the data, I think that despite the day-to-day fluctuations in the AAPL stock, these dips and peaks are also largely influenced by the acceptance of each Apple products’ announcement and release.

It could be seen as a popularity score of sorts. Taking the iPhone 13 event as an example, as it is one of the most recent releases, based on a few reviews the Apple Watch Series 7 has been rather disappointing due to the really slight improvements in the make of the new watch. The iPhone 13 itself was controversial and investors were worried that it might be a boring upgrade, thus reflected in the red-colored candle-stick graph on the day of its announcement.

Here's a video scroll through of the 2019 product announcements and releases
Here's a video scroll through of the 2020 product announcements and releases
Here's a video scroll through of the 2021 product announcements and releases

Conclusion

The rumors of all Apple announcements or releases that cause the AAPL stocks to take a dive are evidently false, but it can definitely be seen that these events and their products’ performance are in direct correlation to the performance of the stock market on the day of the announcement or release.

References