Apple Falls on Discount News

The iPhone empire simply can’t beat declining demand

BREAKING NEWS

Apple stock steepened their decline today on new reports that the company has been forced to offer iPhone discounts in China. Let’s break it down: 

WHAT HAPPENED

Apple is dropping iPhone prices by around $70 dollars in China as part of a Lunar New Year promotion. Why is that news? 

Apple has offered discounts like this before—specifically last year, but investors are dumping the stock as Apple has already had margin concerns for the better part of this year. Meanwhile, pressure from the Chinese market and declining demand in general are causing investors to dump Apple whenever there’s even a hint of bad news.

BROKEN WATCH

Meanwhile, new reports claim that Apple is dropping blood oximeter sensors from certain Apple Watch models in order to circumvent an import ban placed by the U.S. government. The market sees this as Apple capitulating even though the whole patent argument is far from over. All of this is adding to today’s sell pressure. 

WHY IT MATTERS

With critical downgrades from Wall Street traders and a litany of bad news to start the year, Apple’s stock is experiencing a ‘death by a thousand cuts’ moment. None of the news items surrounding Apple right now are overly negative in their own right, but they are starting to compound and add more and more sell pressure to the stock. Apple declined over 2% in early trading and has fallen over 6% since December.