With its first fiscal quarter of 2019 (referring to the last quarter of 2018, from October to December) finished, Apple already has a good idea of ​​the numbers that will be revealed at its next results conference – scheduled for 29 January.
With this preliminary overview in hand, the CEO Tim Cook found itself obliged, even last night, to write a letter to investors adjusting the company’s revenue forecast for the period (from $ 89-93 billion to $ 84 billion) and raising some possible reasons for this rare change – the last The time Apple did this was in June 2002, obviously still under Steve Jobs. At the time, as John Gruber rightly noted in Daring Fireball, the adjustment was around 10% – while yesterday’s was 7%. The point, of course, is that the gross values ​​are totally different: $ 200 million then, $ 7 billion now.
No matter that billing $ 84 billion in a quarter is still surreal and that sales of iPhones are only «weak» by Apple’s own standards (it still sold millions and millions of iPhones in the period, it just won’t set a new historical record this time), the news is bad – especially for investors / company shareholders. And this was reflected strongly in today’s NASDAQ trading session.
In just one day, Apple lost almost ten percent of its market value – more precisely, the $ AAPL has plummeted 9.96% today, taking the market cap $ 674.8 billion and allowing both Amazon and Alphabet (Google) to outperform it. Yes, Apple is now only the fourth most valuable company in the world.
Here is the summary of the day for the four giants:
| 1 | Microsoft | $ 97.40 | -3.68% | $ 747.8 billion |
| 2 | Amazon | $ 1,500.28 | -2.52% | $ 733.6 billion |
| 3 | Alphabet | $ 1,016.06 | -2.85% | $ 709.5 billion |
| 4 | Apple | $ 142.19 | -9.96% | $ 674.8 billion |
If we look at $ AAPL’s performance since its last historic peak, recorded on October 3rd, it is jaw-dropping. That day, the shares closed at $ 232.07 and the company was worth $ 1.121 trillion. Since then, Apple’s shares have lost nothing less than 39% in value. It basically went back to the level it was in July 2017.
All of this negative performance also has a strong impact on Apple’s suppliers / partners, some of which saw their shares plummet by up to 17% from yesterday to today. Several financial analysts took the day to issue notes by updating their performance forecasts to $ AAPL – which now range from $ 140 to $ 211.
Earlier today, Cook met with Apple employees in the Town Hall on the company’s campus in Infinite Loop (Cupertino) to discuss this situation. If you paint any information about what happened there, we will let you know.
