The last trading sessions on the financial markets of 2022, and the first of 2023, did not hold any surprises for technology stocks. As for nearly a year now, it’s decadence. Apple, which has already lost more than 1000 billion dollars in capitalization, continues its fall. It is now worth less than $2 trillion. To date, she was the only one to still exceed this milestone.
If Elon Musk was the first man to lose more than 200 billion dollars in one year, Apple is also breaking records with the dazzling evaporation of all its wealth created over the past two years. The company is back to its previous pre-pandemic levels, at $125 a share and a capitalization of $1,989,000,000. A year ago, however, it exceeded 3,000,000,000 dollars to become the first company to reach this milestone. Microsoft and Saudi Aramco, which completes the podium of the largest capitalizations on the planet, have also lost the status of 2000 billion dollars.
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Even stronger than the S&P 500
Of course, Amazon and Alphabet lost much more than Apple in 2022. The first saw its price fall by 38.8%, while the second fell by 50.7%. At Apple, the drop is 27.2% over the twelve months of the year, but this is already much more than the average on the S&P 500 index, of the 500 largest American companies, which lost 19.2% in 2022. The withdrawal of capital will continue in 2023 if Apple continues to blame the problems at its suppliers, in particular Foxconn at which strikes last month led the company to have to considerably slow down its production.
Inflation does not help. The Apple products presented during the last keynote showed astronomical prices and the global demand for smartphones and technological products is far from there. No better than Qualcomm to notice this, as early as last October, when the chip company explained that “Given the uncertainty caused by the macroeconomic environment, we are updating our forecast for 3G/4G/5G mobile volumes for calendar year 2022 from a single-digit percentage decline year-on-year to a two-digit percentage”.
Last quarter sales, including the holiday season, have not yet been reported in Apple’s financial results. The next appointment has not yet been announced, but according to the algorithms of Zacks Investment Research, which is based on Apple’s historical calendars, the date should be set for January 26. At that time, Apple’s stock could fall even further, if the results are disappointing.
