Apple offers holiday discount in China as Huawei competition heats up

Image source: Photo by Amanz on Unsplash

📱 Apple offers holiday discount in China as Huawei competition heats up. The company is offering discounts on its top-end iPhones and other products in China for the upcoming Chinese New Year as the U.S. tech giant faces heightened competition in one of its most crucial markets. CNBC reports.

📊 TeslaTrail: Tesla stock surge runs up against a potential annual sales drop. Yahoo Finance reports

🏭 AsiaDip: Asia's factories end 2024 on weak footing as Trump 2.0 risks mount. Reuters reports.

🔍 ProbePush: A shareholder of agribusiness ADM is pressing the company's CEO to resign for failing to clearly tell investors about problems with its internal accounting practices that have sparked a criminal investigation. Reuters reports.

🚀 StarLift: SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said that the company hopes to conduct the seventh flight test of its Starship launch vehicle on January 10. Benzinga reports.

⚡HybridShift: China’s electric car boom is increasingly more about hybrids. CNBC reports.

🔒 EVBreach: Volkswagen leak exposed location of 800,000 electric car drivers for months. Mashable reports.

(All pricing and percent gains are based on Early Pre-Market from 4:00 AM to 7:00 AM Eastern Time)
Benzinga reports.

1. $REVBL: Revelation Biosciences
Total gain: 181.99%

2. $AEI: Alset
Total gain: 113.72%

3. $ALCE: Alternus Clean Energy
Total gain: 106.15%

4. $CGBS: Crown LNG Holdings
Total gain: 72.45%

5. $ORIS: Oriental Rise Holdings
Total gain: 58.82%

Foldable iPhone and iPad rumor

Rumors have been snowballing around the internet for months (if not years) about Apple joining the foldable fray that companies like Samsung have found success in over the past few years.

Back in February 2024, The Information reported that Apple was working on a clamshell-style foldable iPhone. A more recent round of reporting from the Wall Street Journal in December corroborated this, suggesting the new device's display size would exceed that of the iPhone 16 Pro Max when unfolded. According to this report, this device could actually launch as early as 2026, but that's far from a guarantee at this stage.

The good news about the foldable iPad is that both the WSJ and Bloomberg reports featured information on it, too, instead of just the foldable iPhone. The bad news is that we don't know much more about the iPad than we do about the iPhone.

The WSJ's report indicated that Apple is working on a larger device that is "intended to serve as a laptop." The display, when unfolded, would be roughly 19-inches in size, which is bigger than the biggest MacBook displays by between four and five inches.

The closing price of the top three market percent gainers trading near or above $3 on December 31.

*All pricing and percent gains are based on regular market trading hours from 9:30am to 4:00pm Eastern Time

1. $BDMD: Baird Medical Investment
Total gain: 668.57%
The company supported and participated in the 2024 Guangdong Provincial Parathyroid Disease - Southern Yue Forum, held in Guangzhou, China. Benzinga reports.

2. $APM: Aptorum Group
Total gain: 131.74%
The stock appeared to be moving on no notable news.

3. $VSTM: Verastem
Total gain: 42.64%
The company announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has accepted for review the New Drug Application under the accelerated approval pathway for avutometinib, an oral RAF/MEK clamp, in combination with defactinib, an oral FAK inhibitor, for the treatment of adult patients with recurrent low-grade serous ovarian cancer, who received at least one prior systemic therapy and have a KRAS mutation. Benzinga reports.

Time (ET) / Report / Period

8:30 am - Initial jobless claims - December 28
10:00 am - Construction spending - November

“An investor's worst enemy is not the stock market but his own emotions. Staying rational is critical to long-term success.”

― Peter Lynch

Sourced in:
“One Up On Wall Street: How to Use What You Already Know to Make Money in
the Market”, by Peter Lynch, published in 1989.