“Gloomy economic news and the wild swings of the stock market may be getting you down,” Jeff Sommer reports for The New York Times. “But at least you can count on this: We’ve entered the sweet spot of the iPhone cycle.”
“Since Sept. 19, when the iPhone 6 and its larger sibling, the iPhone 6 Plus, went on sale, consumers have been ordering the gadgets faster than Apple can deliver them. The ripple effects are being felt throughout the economy — and they have been moving the stock market,” Sommer reports. “‘The iPhone is having a measurable impact,’ said Michael Feroli, the chief United States economist for JPMorgan Chase… He estimates that iPhone sales are adding one-quarter to one-third of a percentage point to the annualized growth rate of the gross domestic product.”
“Apple is the biggest company, by market capitalization, in the world. Apple accounts for about 3.5 percent of the weighting of the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index,” Sommer reports. “And, through Thursday, because its stock has performed magnificently while the overall market has not, Apple accounted for 18 percent of the entire rise of the S&P 500 index this year, according to calculations by Paul Hickey, co-founder of the Bespoke Investment Group. And the engine driving Apple shares is the iPhone.”
Much more in the full article here.