Millennials are loading up on Apple ahead of earnings (AAPL)

pulse

February 1, 2018 1:33 PM

Investors will be watching the iPhone X sales numbers and the company's forward-looking guidance.

Apple is set to report earnings after the bell on Thursday.
Investors will be watching the iPhone X sales numbers and the company's forward-looking guidance.

Apple is set to report its holiday-quarter earnings Thursday, and millennials can't get enough of the stock.

On Robinhood, the trading app popular with millennials, young investors are buying shares of Apple 78% more often than they are selling them. The stock was also the most held stock on Robinhood, according to Shrey Shahi, the head of data science at Robinhood.

Shahi said the enthusiasm for the company could be stemming from the flagship iPhone X. Apple's Thursday report will be the first to include sales of the new phone. Last quarter, young investors on Robinhood were selling shares 20% more often than they were buying them, a stark contrast from this quarter.

On Stockpile, the app that lets users trade in fractional shares, users were even more enthusiastic. Young investors were buying 5.7 times as often as they were selling. The company was the third most held stock on the app, Stockpile told Markets Insider.

Wall Street investors are a bit more skeptical. BMO Capital Markets issued a rare downgrade of the company on Wednesday, saying the iPhone X's high price had led the company to halve its production targets for the first several months of 2018.

Shares of Apple have slid 2.84% this year, while the S&P 500 Information Technology index has returned 6.79%.

Wall Street is expecting adjusted earnings of $3.84 a share on revenue of $87.302 billion.

pulse