Shares in Apple Inc. plummeted another 5.46% Monday as investor jitters sent the broader markets deep into negative territory. AAPL ended the day at US$ 353.21 per share, down $20.41 (-5.46%), on heavy volume of 40.5 million shares trading hands. All of the major indices ended the day in red.
The DOW closed at 10809.85, down 634.76 (-5.55%). The NASDAQ similarly ended down at 2357.69, a loss of 174.72 (-6.9%), while the S&P 500 dropped to 1119.46, down 79.92 (-6.66%).
Those closes erase most of the gains made over the last 12 months by the indexes, but a chart comparing AAPL’s performance vs. the NASDAQ shows that shares of Apple are faring better than the markets as a whole.
AAPL vs. NASDAQ Over the Past 12 Months
Today’s blood letting occurred after Standard & Poor’s, the same organization behind the S&P 500 index mentioned above, downgraded the credit rating for the U.S to AA+, down from AAA. While investors have largely discredited the rating decrease, including Warren Buffet and other high profile fund managers, analysts, and other Wall Street players (the AP has a piece with opinions from those both for and against the downgrade) it apparently provided the excuse for many of those same investors to pull their money from stocks and put them into gold and U.S. Treasury bills, the same Treasury that the S&P downgraded to begin with.
Moody’s and other major credit rating services did not downgrade the U.S.
*In the interest of full disclosure, the author holds a tiny, almost insignificant share in AAPL stock that was not an influence in the creation of this article.