What Investors Are Missing in Apple’s iPhone 17 Sales Surge

It’s the calm before the earnings storm. Netflix kicks off tech earnings on Tuesday with its third-quarter report, and most of the big tech names come next week. Already, though, investors are anticipating the news. That’s most obviously true of Apple, whose shares jumped 4% on Monday on a research report about strong sales of the recently released iPhone 17 series. After spending most of the year below its 2024 closing price, Apple stock is now up 4.7% for the year. That performance is nowhere near as good as that of most other big tech names, but it’s a big improvement on where Apple was.

Not to rain on investors’ parade, but their enthusiasm doesn’t make much sense. The research report that excited people so much on Monday, from Counterpoint Research, said the models from “the iPhone 17 series have outsold the iPhone 16 series by 14% during the first 10 days of availability in China and the US.” The new iPhone went on sale on Sept. 19, 11 days before the end of the September quarter, so Counterpoint’s update should imply good news for the quarterly report. But it’s not that simple.