AAPL Gap Up History: Follow-Through Data

Apple Gaps Are Less Frequent but More Reliable

Apple's high market cap and institutional ownership mean it gaps less often than small or mid-cap names. Apple opens more than 1% above the prior close on roughly 9% of all trading days — less than half the rate for Tesla (22%) and much less than NVDA (18%). Apple gaps up more than 3% on only about 1.5% of days.

But when Apple does gap, the gaps tend to be more 'meaningful' — driven by earnings, product announcements, analyst rating changes, or major supply chain news. As a result, Apple gap-ups have historically had a higher follow-through rate than their more volatile peers.

Base Rates: Small Edge on Same-Day, Better Edge on 5-Day

Apple gap-ups of 1%+ have historically produced a same-day open-to-close return averaging roughly +0.2% with a 52% win rate. That's a thin edge — basically flat — but it's better than the slight negative same-day edge on Tesla gaps.

The 5-day and 10-day follow-through is where the real edge appears. Apple's 5-day forward return after a 1%+ gap up has averaged roughly +1.6% with a 61% win rate. The 10-day return has averaged around +2.1% with a 60% win rate. These are meaningful edges versus Apple's unconditional baselines.

• Same-day open-to-close after 1%+ gap up: ~+0.2%, ~52% win rate
• 5-day return after 1%+ gap up: ~+1.6% average, ~61% win rate
• 10-day return after 1%+ gap up: ~+2.1% average, ~60% win rate
• Gap frequency: ~9% of days with 1%+ gap up

Gap Fills Are Common but Slow

About 65% of Apple's gap-ups eventually 'fill' (price trades back to the prior day's close) within 20 trading days. But 'eventually' is the key word — most of those fills happen after the gap has already been extended. In other words, a gap up often produces several days of continuation before any pullback toward the prior close.

This means 'fade the gap' is generally a poor short-term strategy on Apple. The gap-fill often happens after weeks of drift, not hours, and the path usually involves several days of higher highs first.

Earnings Gaps Dominate the Sample

Roughly 35% of Apple's 1%+ gap-ups over the past decade have occurred on the day after quarterly earnings. Excluding those, the remaining gap-ups show a smaller — but still positive — follow-through edge: 5-day average around +1.1% with a 57% win rate. The earnings gaps specifically carry a larger edge (5-day average near +2.7% with a 65% win rate).

For traders building systematic strategies, this matters. If you're only trading non-earnings gaps, the expected edge is smaller. If you're focused on the first trading day after earnings, the edge is stronger but the sample is smaller (only 4 events per year).

Using the Data

The most useful workflow: when AAPL gaps up, run the intraday pattern search in the first 30-60 minutes of trading. Chart Library will return the closest historical analogs and their forward returns. If the analogs skew positive over 5-10 days, the gap has historical support.

curl -H "X-API-Key: cl_..." \ "https://chartlibrary.io/api/v1/intelligence?symbol=AAPL&timeframe=rth"

Related reading: our posts on NVDA gap up follow-through and TSLA gap up follow-through cover the full spectrum of how gap behavior differs across large caps.