Apple lost almost $200bn in market valuation in just two days on the news that China would ban iPhone usage in government offices and state-backed companies. Of course, China is one of Apple’s biggest markets; the company makes roughly a fifth of its revenue from China and it would be a shame to lose market share in such a huge marketplace, but the market has certainly overreacted to the latest news, because Chinese government staff could already not show up at work with their iPhones. So, the chances are that, if you are a government worker in China, you already didn’t have an iPhone! In this respect, an analyst at Wedbush highlighted that the ban would affect around half a million iPhones over the roughly 45 mio that he expects the company to sell in China over the next 12 months. That’s around a 1% hit. Another analyst at Evercore ISI said that the government wouldn’t got too hard on Apple either, as even if Apple moves production toward India, today, most iPhones are still assembled in China, and making Apple angry would cause many job losses, and that Xi is not in a position to afford today. Unfortunately for Apple, its iPhones lost market share from 20% to 16% between the first and the second quarter of this year, but iPhones market share stands at 65% of the smartphones worth more than $600 in China, according to IDC – cited by the WSJ. Huawei, on the other hand, stands for around 18% of the sales of iPhones of a higher price range. Therefore, the latest Apple selloff could be an opportunity for buying a dip. Apple lost almost 3% yesterday, after falling more than 3.5% the day before. The share price is now below $180 per share. 38 analysts on CNN’s business survey point at a median price expectation of around $200 for Apple shares for the next 12-months. The high estimate goes up to $240 per share.
Beyond Apple
When a tech giant like Apple, with a market cap of nearly $2.8 trillion sneezes, the whole market catches a cold. The S&P500 fell for the third day to 4451 yesterday, while Nasdaq 100 slipped below its 50-DMA. Apple selloff also affected suppliers and other mega cap stocks. Qualcomm for example fell more than 7%, while Foxconn remained little impacted by the news.
Zooming out, the US small caps were also under pressure yesterday, the Russell 2000 fell below its 100-DMA and came close to the 200-DMA, as the latest data showed that the US jobless claims fell to the lowest levels since February, defying the latest softness in jobs data. Other data also showed that the labor unit cost didn’t fall as much as expected in Q2. But happily, the US treasuries were not much affected by the latest jobless claims data. The US 2-year yield fell below 5%, although the US dollar index extended its advance toward fresh highs since last March.
The selloff in the Japanese yen slowed against the US dollar. The USDJPY pushed below the 147 mark this morning despite a slower than expected GDP print in Japan in the Q2. Capital expenditure fell 1%, private consumption declined 0.6%, making the case for a softer Bank of Japan (BoJ) more plausible. But the Japanese officials dared traders to continue buying the USDJPY to 150, saying that they would intervene.
The EURUSD sees more hesitation into the 1.07 mark, and into next week’s European Central Bank (ECB) meeting. The base case is a no rate hike, and yesterday’s morose growth figures came to cement the no change expectation. But the economic weakness may have little impact on inflation. Any bad surprise in German inflation due this morning could convince some ECB doves that the European policymakers may announce another 25bp hike when they meet next week.
