Apple slump deepens

Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO

Apple is slumping as the usually high-flying tech stock struggles with the burden of raised expectations.

The world’s most-valuable public company saw its stock price drop for a fifth-straight day Tuesday, falling as much as $5.19, or 4.4 percent, to $113.25 as investors fret over China’s economy and whether Apple can keep growing at the pace it’s maintained over the last few quarters.

Apple shares closed Tuesday at $114.64 – down 14 percent since hitting a record $133.60 in February. That puts Apple in a “correction,” which is Wall Street jargon for price declines of 10 percent or more from a peak. The slide has wiped out more than $96 billion in market value.

The stock also dropped below its 200-day moving average, a technical indicator that traders use to gauge momentum. And as a sign of Apple’s outsized role in the market, its decline Tuesday accounted for more than half of the 47-point drop in the Dow Jones industrial average for the day.

Apple sold more than 47 million of its signature iPhones in the last quarter, or 35 percent more than a year earlier. That drove the company’s profit and earnings above Wall Street estimates. But demand for the iPhone and Apple’s new smartwatch still fell short of some analysts’ more bullish predictions.