Apple’s stock price dropped 5% in early trading on Monday, as Wall Street continues to fear the impact coronavirus will have on the tech giant’s business — as well as the global economy.
After a few hours of trading, Apple shares were down to about $298 — after having fallen as low as $289 earlier in the morning — which is about 24 points below where it was last week. Last Monday, Apple warned investors coronavirus had “temporarily constrained” iPhone production in China, causing the company to fall behind schedule. In addition, the company said demand for its products has fallen off because of the deadly virus outbreak.
Still, Apple’s dip has hardly put the company on the verge of Chapter 11: Apple is jockeying with longtime rival Microsoft for the claim to being the world’s most valuable company, with both tech companies worth about $1.3 trillion on Monday morning.
Overall, the stock market was hit hard on Monday, as investors worry about the spread of coronavirus, following several hundred confirmed cases in South Korea, Italy and Iran. The Dow Jones was down more than 850 points, or about 3%, on Monday, and Nasdaq, where Apple is traded, was down about 3.3%.
There have been more than 77,000 confirmed coronavirus cases, according to the Washington Post, by the end of Sunday; nearly 2,600 people have died from it. Most of the cases stem from China, where the economy has been devastated in the last month by the outbreak.