US tech stocks continued to take a hit in incessant sell-offs, as market leader Apple’s market value dipped under $ 2 trillion on January 3, a fall of over 3% during intraday trading. This valuation was the first since May, while the stock had briefly breached the $3 trillion valuation in January 2022. That is a trillion-dollar dip in valuation within a year.
The main concern of traders, adding to the unease of stakeholders of the company, was that Apple may not be able to meet its shipment commitments of iPhone 14 Pro during the holiday season, the main sales period. This has resulted from the Covid restrictions on its primary factory in China.
On January 3, Apple fell $3.74% to a price of $130.20 per share, a 52-week low, giving the company a valuation of $1.99 trillion at market close.
Apple may have slid from its unnatural $3 trillion valuation, but its shares remained strong, hitting $2 trillion in August 2020. This was because the pandemic had boosted its sales of computers and phones for remote work and school. The same pandemic, in China, has now resulted in a loss in valuation.
The interesting part of the entire episode is that while top experts called this a “loss of momentum for Apple”, the overall finances and the technical strength of the company continued to rule strong. However, missing this important holiday window can also mean further bad news for the company, as the US and other major economies definitely head into a higher interest rate environment as the US Fed remained hawkish about the condition of the economic health of the country. A loss in consumer confidence has also been predicted, hurting demand for Apple’s premium-priced products.
Apple is the last big company to give up its $2 trillion valuation. Previously, Microsoft hit the $2 trillion mark but retreated from it in 2022.
