Apple Inc.’s fourth post-earnings plunge of the last five quarters has handed the iPhone maker a distinction it could do without, making it the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s worst performer since it entered the gauge a year ago.
The decline in Apple, hovering just over 7 percent, extended its loss since being added to the 120-year-old stock measure to 24 percent. That eclipses a 19 percent drop for American Express Co. since March 18, 2015.
The timing of the Apple’s addition and its subsequent decline continues a frustrating pattern for owners of Dow stocks, said Richard Moroney of Horizon Investment Services LLC in Hammond, Indiana. “By the time they put a company in, sentiment toward the stock is already pretty bullish and sometimes that coincides with the bloom coming off the rose.”
Weakness upon entering the Dow is nothing new. Since 1999, 16 stocks have been added, returning a median 0.8 percent in their first 12 months of membership. That gain was about 8 percentage points worse than the rest of the market over the comparable period.
Apple’s year-to-date decline extended to about 8 percent, pushing its price-earnings ratio to roughly half the Nasdaq 100 Index’s 22. The drop will extend the Cupertino, California-based company’s decrease since its February 2015 record to almost 30 percent, leaving it firmly ensconced in bear market territory.
The 7.1 percent fall in Apple’s stock ranks among the worst single-day declines for the shares since the bull market began. The only time they fell more since 2009 were an 8 percent drop after reporting results in January 2014 and a 12 percent plummet in January 2013.
Apple reported its first quarterly revenue contraction in more than a decade on Tuesday and forecast another decline in the first period. If the after-hours decline holds, the share plunge will erase about $45 billion in the company’s total value -- more than the market capitalization for about 80 percent of the Standard & Poor’s 500 index’s constituents.
While Apple may be at a crossroads and in need of a way to revive revenue growth, few would argue that it doesn’t belong in the Dow, Maroney said. “The keepers of the Dow would say they’re taking a long-term view and they still expect Apple to be a leading company,” Maroney said.