Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) shares have fallen below $400 for the first time since December 2011. The stock hit $399.11 briefly today before recovering slightly to stay above the $400 per share mark.
So why the sudden drop in price? It has been trending downward anyway recently, but today’s drop is certainly significant. Forbes contributor Greg Satell points to an announcement from Cirrus Logic, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRUS), one of Apple’s most important suppliers. The supplier said that its earnings report will be far below the expectations of analysts, and so naturally, since the company supplies components for Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), investors are starting to get scared. Shares of Cirrus Logic got hammered after the news, falling as much as 15 percent on Wednesday, and the bad news apparently bled over to Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) shares.
Most analysts are managing to stay positive on the company, assuring investors that they just need to hold on until the second half of this year and then things will turn around. However, this week’s note from Goldman Sachs analysts in which they said they remain positive on Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) may be another part of the problem for the company’s stock today because they did say that they expect the company to miss consensus on next week’s earnings report. CNN Money reports that Lazard Capital also predicted that the company wouldn’t make consensus.
And then what about the report from Jefferies analyst Peter Misek, who said the iPhone 6 release date will be pushed back to the middle of next year? That’s not good either. And of course there are always going to be certain investors who get out of the stock right before the company reports earnings because of the risk that it could drop if the company disappoints.
So when you take all of these things and combine them together, you do begin to see trouble for Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), even if the trouble doesn’t turn out to be real.
