“U.S. stocks retreated, following last week’s advance in benchmark indexes, after Apple Inc. paced a slump in technology companies and as European finance ministers meet to discuss the region’s government debt crisis,” Rita Nazareth reports for Bloomberg.
“Apple, the world’s most valuable company, slumped 1.3 percent and briefly dropped below $600 billion in market value,” Nazareth reports. “The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index decreased 0.3 percent to 1,456.04 at 11:01 a.m. New York time, after gaining 1.4 percent last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 23.39 points, or 0.2 percent, to 13,586.76. Trading in S&P 500 companies was 26 percent below the 30-day average at this time of day.”
Nazareth reports, “European finance ministers meet in Luxembourg today to discuss Spain’s overhaul effort and closer banking cooperation, while German Chancellor Angela Merkel visits Greece tomorrow for the first time since the crisis erupted. The World Bank said policy makers in Asia’s emerging economies have room to provide more fiscal stimulus as China’s slowdown drags the region’s growth to an estimated 11-year low in 2012… Nine out of 10 groups in the S&P 500 fell as technology and health-care shares had the biggest losses. Apple retreated 1.6 percent to $642.41, dropping 4.3 percent in three days.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take:
Dear Clusterfsck,
There’s no such thing as a free lunch.
Sincerely,
Common Sense
OH MY GAWD APPLE HAS DROPPED TO LEVELS NOT SEEN SINCE… Err, about 6 or 7 weeks ago.
Don’t quite get who the MDN take is aimed at. The EU or Wall Street? Spain’s problems are hardly news enough to cause market swings such as this.
Perhaps they’re aimed at the American voter, who in less than 30 days has an important choice between the path of fiscal restraint in Governor Romney or riding the status quo into a Roman empire-like collapse behind Barack Hussein Obama.
Fiscal restraint my ass, we had surpluses before the 2 wars that created the deficits we now have.
Courtesy of the W ape that Romney makes look good.
Surpluses from budgetary restraint created at the behest of Newt Gingrich and the Republican congress, who dragged Bill Clinton kicking and screaming toward the middle after he took a shellacking in the ’94 midterms.
Take a break Romneythinks that Americans are all that dumb and that he can cout on the same ignorance that Microsoft counted on for so many uears, but as we all know, Americans aren’t all that gullible and dumb – Apple is proof that when push comes to shove, quality and values prevail and thetruth shines.
W’s wars cost us 30 Billion a months for years – Hence the deficit that you would love to pin on our president , but can’t because it’s a rich man’s war fought by the poor who fight it and die.
Oh my little padawan, you are wrong. The deficit was reduced mainly by the “1993 Dept Reduction Act” that was opposed by every single republican in congress led by Newt Gingrich! The Republicans claimed it would result in higher deficits and also result in an economic recession during President Clinton’s term. They were wrong as usual.
Exactly. . .
Of course the Roman Empire slowly declined over a thousand year period, finally disappearing with the sacking of Constantinople in 1204. Along the way they lost, regained, then lost again the province that contained their original capital of Rome, but its end was hardly a sudden chain of events.
BTW, anyone else notice how Rome only went into decline once Christians got into power?
There’s a lesson to learn from history if ever there was one. If you want a strong nation don’t vote in Bible Bashers.
By the way the rise of Islam and its liberal precepts of learning and mathematics gave rise to the Islamic Empire in the 7th to 8th centuries which curtailed the power of the Eastern Roman Empire by arrogating large tracts of land from Roman control thereby contributing to the lack of manpower to staff the army and a reduction in the tax base from which to fund armed expeditions to repel the Muslim invaders.
Christianity had nothing to do with it. Even if Rome had retained pagan rituals, it would have culminated in the same results.
You cannot substitute a shrinking tax base and expand your military empire at the same time.
Why was the Islamic Empire able to make all those territorial gains so quickly though? Because the Romans were busy concentrating on unimportant wars to recapture past glories rather than looking to the future. These wars drained their treasury and therefore their capability to resist the Caliphate’s armies when a real threat emerged.
Looks like we really are doomed to repeat history after all, regardless of November’s result. Maybe the damage has already been done.
Lets add that the morality of Rome assisted in its demise. JudeoChristian ethics were lacking in this culture.
In its early days yes, but it was only after they took up the Jesus Cult that the Empire started to fall apart. Even the fall of Byzantium a millennium later could be put down to “JudeoChristian values”, since had the Pope’s armies not sacked the city during the Crusades in order to eliminate the Patriarch as a rival the Byzantines would have had enough wealth to hire whatever armies they needed to push back the Turks.
If they’d carried on with their polytheism, which by its nature allows for multiple points of view to easily co-exist, there would have probably been a lot less infighting in the Western Empire. They might even have held off the Goths etc, or even incorporated them into the Empire as they had done with many other cultures prior to their conversion to a monotheistic religion.
That’s the problem with monotheism you see. It teaches you that what you believe is the only belief worth having, and therefore causes differences of opinion to become well entrenched divides.
Like the Soviet Union? East Germany?
Oh, and D’OH!! 1453 AD, not 1204. Wrong sacking of Byzantium.
The Western half of the Roman Empire dissolved in 476 AD with the deposition of Emperor Romulus Augustus by the barbarian king Odoacer, king of the Goths.
The Eastern half of the Roman Empire fell in 1453 to the Turkish Ottoman Empire.
Indeed. The Roman Empire was at its height in the second century AD. After two centuries of small decline it suffered a major setback with the loss of the western provinces, followed by a revival in the sixth century as some of those were conquered back, then it went into a very long slow fall towards final collapse at the hands of the Turks nearly a 1000 years later.
This isn’t an example of a country being wiped off the map in a sudden event. It was there for 1800 years in total, 1300 of them after its heyday. Hence it’s a bad example to use to indicate a sudden disaster, such as the one R2 was trying to illustrate.
Fascinating. Most of us think of Julius Caesar when we think of the Roman Empire. I knew it lasted at least a few hundred years after that (there’s an interesting documentary called something like “The Roman Empire in the 1st Century A.D.”), but had no idea it lasted THAT long.
It is quite incredible when you think about it isn’t it? Less than 40 years after the Roman Empire finally disappeared Columbus discovered the Americas.
Enjoy ‘O’ while/if you can, he’s a goner in November.
You emperor has no clothes on and yet he still continues to promote a rocket which we all see as an eetsy beetsy weenie.
Your emperor has no clothes on and yet he still continues to promote a rocket which we all see as an eetsy beetsy weenie.
MDN is clueless and prejudiced when talking abodet the world economy. Spain and the rest of the suffering European economies suffer from issues that have much to do with currency valuation and little to do with micro- economics
Possibly. But they can spell.
Dang! AAPL is on sale. I wish I had more cash. I would buy up some shares.
Exactly! Apple down? Sale time!! Wish I had more to invest too.
Next Quarterly report, Christmas Quarter report and iPad Mini (and any other Apple Mac updates) should get us right back up past $700.
Not sure about the next (4th) quarter report. It may be a bit weak due to iPhone five sales. Lack of supply and over estimation will come into play. No, it’s not a conspiracy against Apple. But I would buy just before the earnings report or at least immediately after. You want to hold AAPL through the beginning of next year because the first quarters earnings will be fantastic. Luckily I got out two weeks ago. Always learn to take profit. I am slowly buying back in starting today. Buy and hold sounds good but you only make money when you sell. I’ll bet a lot of buy and hold AAPL investors wish they had sold two weeks ago. Because they’ve been sitting on cash right now ready to make a whole lot of money. Learn to take profit.
@GM
It’s not easy to predict when to sell and take profits. If you sell and then the stocks jumps much higher you have lost that upside and if it doesn’t dip below where you sold, it costs more to get back in.
What did you base your selling on?. When will you sell whatever AAPL you are buying now? Why?
Apple hit an all-time high. Good enough reason to have sold? I’ll probably sell at least some if not all when it reaches its all time high again. Good enough reason to sell? C’mon, it’s not rocket science. Buy low sell high. Just don’t be too greedy. Learn to take profit. Or you can be a buy and hold investor and only have paper profits. Try paying your bills with paper profits. There are a lot of investors on the site that brag about buying and holding Apple. That makes no sense. They have never made a profit because they have never sold any of their Apple shares. Sure you bought it 200 and it’s at 700. Look at all the money you made. Whoops, it dropped to 630. You just lost $70 per share. Had you taken profit at 700 look how much more money you would have to buy back into Apple now. It’s pretty simple. And I’m not talking about becoming a daytrader. It’s just basic investing. Never buy and hold forever. It’s the last thing anyone should ever brag about. It just shows a lack of basic investment knowledge. But I see it time and time again on the site. You invest to make money, you only make money when you sell your stock or option. That’s as basic as it can get. Good luck!
Exactly who was making fun of me a week ago when I said AAPL would drop to $640?
Don’t look at me!
$631 and dropping like a rock. Look out below! Damn! Don’t load up just yet. It has more room to drop.
Nine out of 10 groups in the S&P 500 fell as technology and health-care shares had the biggest losses
Stock prices: Emotional behavior resulting from human perception.
And we thought stock prices has something to do with business. Apparently NOT. But watch the ANALysts continue to pretend it does. 😕