Apple played a part in a historical and brutal day on Wall Street Thursday as fears and concerns over the coronavirus accelerate. The Dow 30 plummeted 10% in value as Apple stock lost almost the same.
Apple (AAPL) stock fell $27.20, or 9.9%, to close at $248.23 a share on Thursday. Shares in the high-tech giant have fallen $76.64 since February 13. For the year Apple shares are down 15.5% in value.
In dollar terms, Apple lost $119 billion in value Thursday, nearly $350 billion since the end of January.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average, already battered by more than a week of losses, fell 2,352.60, or 10%, to finish at 21,200.62. It was the first time the blue chip Dow Industrials fell 10% in a single session since dropping by 22% in the Black Monday stock market crash of 1987.
Thursday’s stock market loss ranks as the fifth largest one-day percentage drop in history.
The five biggest tech companies – Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Facebook and Microsoft – lost more than $416 billion in value on Thursday.
BREAKING: Dow Jones Industrial Average suffers worst percentage drop since 1987's Black Monday sell-off; S&P 500 officially enters bear market, down 20% from its record closing high https://t.co/bvSlJe3t1s
— CNBC Now (@CNBCnow) March 12, 2020
Apple stock still a good buy…with further correction
Many analysts still believe Apple stock is a good value, but caution it – and the stock market as a whole – could be in for a continued correction in the coming days and weeks as a result of the coronavirus.
“The coronavirus is scary and people don’t know what to expect,” Kathy Entwistle, senior vice president of wealth management at UBS, told CNBC. “It’s like the tsunami is coming. We know it’s going to hit any day and nobody knows what the outcome is going to be.”
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives, who covers a wide range of tech names, thinks Apple is still a value buy.
“Our investing philosophy in times of crisis is to do a bottoms up analysis and stress test the models of our top tech names/themes vs. a sensitivity in valuations,” he writes. “If stocks [like Apple] stick out with a green light based on this exercise and framework, we hand hold investors to buy these dips through this volatility, own the names for the other side of this panic, and see the forest through the trees on the fundamental drivers for the next decade in tech.”
Craig Johnson, senior technical research analyst at Piper Sandler, looks at Apple’s stock chart and worries.
“There’s no question Apple is a great company. I’m not sure it’s a great stock, though, at this point in time,” Johnson said on CNBC’s “Trading Nation” on Wednesday. “It’s practically a parabolic chart, and when we’ve seen parabolic charts in the past, which are charts that go up at a very steep ascent, they usually come back and end one way … badly. You end up seeing big corrections and setbacks.”
Johnson believes if Apple stock falls another 10 to 12%, it’s ready to buy at a good price.
“At that point in time, we think there’s good footing on the stock,” Johnson said. “We’d step up and be buyers of Apple at that point.”
