Apple shares fell by as much as 4.4% to $124.17 today after the tech giant reportedly instructed Asian manufacturers to slow production of some of the company’s products (AirPods, Apple Watches, and Mac laptops) due to weakening demand against a weak global macroeconomic environment, recovering slightly to close down 3.7% at U$125.07, reports Forbes.
That’s Apple’s lowest close since June 2021, dragging down the tech giant’s market capitalization to $1.99 trillion. And it’s the company’s first time below $2 trillion in 19 months.
From Forbes: Apple, which remains the world’s largest company by market cap, briefly was worth more than $3 trillion last January before the company’s stock fell 27% over the course of 2022 in the market’s worst year since 2008. The poor performance for the Cupertino, California-based company was still far better than the greater than 50% 2022 declines for shares of Apple peers Meta and Amazon. Apple’s drop largely tracked the historic tech selloff, though slumping demand for the iPhone 14 and manufacturing headwinds in China also affected the stock. Headlining the dismal 2022 for stocks was Tesla, which was the second worst-performing stock on the S&P with a more than 70% annual decline. Among the factors bringing down Tesla shares were growing demand concerns and the unpopular “antics” of its billionaire CEO Elon Musk, who has sold $22.9 billion in Tesla shares after agreeing to buy Twitter for $44 billion in April. Musk has also served as the social media company’s CEO since October, a tenure marred by controversy.
