$Apple(AAPL.US)$NVIDIA(NVDA.US)$Tesla(TSLA.US)Yesterday's index was basically AAPL mindlessly propping up the market. AAPL has been quite volatile recently, with pre-sales starting last Friday and pre-sale data released on Monday, showing a 12.7% decline compared to the iPhone 15 series. The stock price also plummeted nearly 4% on Monday, which was a normal trend. But on Tuesday, institutions came out saying the drop was a buying opportunity, and once AI features go live, sales will rebound.

Then, they were quickly countered by a bunch of institutions saying the iPhone 16 lacks innovation and sales recovery is unlikely. After a whole day of hype on Tuesday, AAPL only rebounded 0.22%, which was clearly a weak rebound. Seeing that the iPhone 16 hype couldn’t continue, institutions came up with a genius idea—why not hype the iPhone 17 for a massive sales surge? And so, the magic happened. First, a Barclays analyst said that despite the overall drop in pre-orders, investors were too pessimistic. Then, a Morgan Stanley analyst chimed in, telling investors to ignore the noise of weaker-than-expected pre-order data and that any dip was a buying opportunity. Finally, the ultimate trump card: insiders claimed Apple had secured TSMC’s first batch of 2nm and subsequent A16 production capacity, with next year’s iPhone 17 Pro fully adopting 2nm. These three pieces of news sent AAPL soaring 2%, single-handedly propping up the index. The rise felt so fake—iPhone 16 hasn’t even officially launched yet, and institutions have already played out multiple scenarios, even pre-hyping next year’s model. One can only marvel at Wall Street’s masterful manipulation. Of course, as the saying goes, "Don’t short the giants"—Wall Street has 10,000 ways to crush retail investors. Right now, pre-market futures are surging, so here’s my take on this temporary rally: if the market opens high today, it’s almost guaranteed to be a high-open, low-close scenario. While I predict a crash, given institutions’ shamelessness, they might prop it up for 2-3 days at highs.

It’s not uncommon for the market to see TSLA, AAPL, and NVDA as the only bright spots. TSLA and AAPL have relatively weaker fundamentals—when these two surge mindlessly, it’s to forcibly prop up the index, signaling an impending market crash. NVDA, with the strongest fundamentals, surges to force shorts to cover, suggesting the index still has room to rise.