Dow drops 500 points on Apple plunge, rising fears of an economic slowdown

[DemocratSinceBirth]

Dow futures plunge following Apple warning Dow futures plunge following Apple warning

U.S. stocks fell sharply on Thursday after Apple warned first-quarter sales would be less than it previously expected. The iPhone maker blamed a slowing Chinese economy for the shortfall, intensifying fears that the global economy may be slowing down.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 503 points as Apple shares led the decline. The S&P 500 pulled back 1.8 percent as the tech sector fell 4.4 percent. The Nasdaq Composite slid 2.2 percent as Apple's stock dropped 9 percent.

A weaker-than-expected economic reading on manufacturing sent the Dow to its lows of the day. ISM's manufacturing index fell to 54.1 in December, economists polled by Refinitiv expected 57.9.

"This piles on to existing anxiety of a slowdown in global growth," said Jeff Kilburg, CEO of KKM Financial. "Apple can be used as a proxy to China's growth."

...

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/03/tech-shares-dive-after-hours-after-apple-warning-nasdaq-etf-loses-nearly-2-percent.html

Trump has to be freaking out.

[Achilleaze]

1. republicans have pissed all over the US economy

[BritVic]

2. - 630 now

[ProudMNDemocrat]

3. Over 650 points now down.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

4. When was the last time the markets had two down years in a row?

[dsc]

10. without looking I would guess

2007 2008 or 2008 2009

[DemocratSinceBirth]

11. The last time was 2000-2001. I looked it up. The bull market Trump is killing began in 2009.

[Igel]

5. Apple says "slowing Chinese economy."

Apple doesn't say, "Enough Chinese cell phone companies have pirated or reverse-engineered enough technology to successfully compete against us with nearly equivalent products at a much lower price; and in a nationalist environment we, as a foreign product, are competing against Chinese companies trumpeted by the Chinese government as essential to Chinese prosperity and influence in the world and which Chinese patriots should support. 'Why, Huawei makes a great phone--and look at those nasty Americans, arresting a proud Chinese for doing what is good for China'."

And when you read "Huawei" you see characters for "splendid flower"; when you hear it, because of extensive homonymy coupled with standard metaphors, you get "China is able". Arrest "China is able" and you get open "The man's trying to keep us down and take away the supremacy we deserve." After all, the Han are the flower of humanity.

Loss of technological edge in explicit exchange for the short-term profit of being able to build cheaply isn't something you recover from quickly.

Chinese nationalism and carefully nurtured grievance isn't going away quickly. The more equal China is on the world stage, the more important all those grievances become because the actual inequality is less and the opportunity for decisive power is greater.

A Chinese slowdown responsible for loss of projected earnings? That's much more short-term and not nearly as death-dealing to a proudly transnational corporation like Apple. And it's something they can blame on the usual authoritarian foes without offending the real bosses. When it comes to he-said/Xi-said disputes, it's clear who has the upper hand.

[Wellstone ruled]

6. Lets add this to your story.

US factory orders dropped 11% in Q4. And the Biggie,TPP ,we are now officially on the outside looking in,in the South East Asian Basin. Obama was dead nuts on,on this one.

[dalton99a]

7. +1

[Wellstone ruled]

9. Add to that same line of your story.

Facebook is in real trouble. Zuckerberg stopped selling his hoard of shares in November. His sales plan was to unload between 15-75 million shares.

Apple,Face-Plant,IBM,Google,and Goldman-Sachs are biggies who are moving this market. October thru November killed the Niffty Fifty which really represents the Heart of America,and they were killed by Trump and Ross's Tariffs. And those stocks lost 30% of their value as a result . BTW,these are the backbone of most Structured Funds and ETF's.

[ck4829]

8. "Afraid of a slowdown", "afraid of a slowdown", "a slowdown could be coming", etc.

Media, you said that about two months ago... we're in a slowdown.