Shares in Apple Inc. dropped more than 3% Friday as a tech retreat took its toll on the markets. In the early afternoon session, AAPL was trading at US$307.00, down $9.65 (-3.05%) , on strong volume.
The tech retreat was set in motion by Cisco, which turned in results for its first fiscal quarter on Thursday. Those results included estimates for the current quarter that while projecting year-over-year increases in revenue of three to five percent, were far below the 13% increases that analysts had expected.
That sent Cisco’s stock packing with a 16% loss on Thursday to close at $20.52, and the rest of the tech sector picked up on the Debbie Downer party Friday morning. Cisco is often seen as a leading tech indicator because the company’s networking infrastructure products often precede other tech expenditures.
While Apple’s sales trends aren’t usually in line with a lot of other tech companies due to its consumer-focus, the company had been riding all-time high trading levels for much of November, and such stratospheric heights were too much to withstand the gloomy outlook for tech sparked by Cisco.
In other words, Apple’s downturn on Friday doesn’t appear to have much to do with Apple itself.
AAPL Chart for Early Afternoon on 11/12/2010
Source: Yahoo!
*In the interest of full disclosure, the author holds a small share in AAPL stock that was not an influence in the creation of this article.