Despite widespread criticism surrounding the pricing of its new line of phones, Apple has sold an impressive 9 million iPhone 5s and 5c models in the first three days after the new handsets being launched. Industry analysts were forecasting sales figures of around 6 million and considering that the iPhone 5 only sold around 4.5 million in the first three days after it was released to the market a year ago. This release is actually being hailed as the most successful iPhone launch in the history of the company. The most propular of the new Apple handsets seems to be the new gold 5s, which has sold out and won’t start shipping again until October. There has been a lot of talk over the last year or so about Apple having lost its innovative spark as it concedes ground to major rival Samsung, however if these figures are anything to go by people are still extremely loyal to the Apple brand. Apple stocks have risen off the back of these initial sales and the company has also released a more hopeful financial forecast.Staying with telecommunications, it seems that Blackberry has secured a deal with Fairfax Financial. The company, currently Blackberry’s largest shareholder, has agreed to pay 4.7 billion dollars for the smartphone manufacturer, making it a private company. This comes off the back of a recent announcement by Blackberry that it would be posting a loss of almost a billion dollars for the last fiscal quarter. Their sales are also worryingly low at the moment and the company is due to lay off 4500 employees, a staggering third of its workforce. Blackberry shares had been in free fall on Friday stopped their descent, even making a slight recovery when news of the deal reached investors.US stock markets had a lacklustre day with all of the major indices closing lower. European stocks also faired in a similar way, and Angela Merkel’s election victory in Germany has shown signs of balancing the EUR/USD currency pair that experienced a sharp rise after renewed fears over the health of the US economy.
Trades for the day. Apple stock still has room to move upwards so CALL trades on this may be a good idea intraday. Also the EUR/USD is looking overbought and even though the drop may not be pronounced for a few days yet PUT trades on this currency pair are set to pay out at the longer intraday time frames.
