Ahead of next Tuesday’s widely awaited Apple iPhone launch, some worry the announcement from the world’s largest company could take the wind out of the market’s sails.
“If the demo disappoints … if there really isn’t any great, sexy new application the market gets excited about, there is a very strong potential here that Apple could take the whole market down,” Boris Schlossberg, managing director of foreign exchange management at BK Asset Management, said Friday on CNBC’s “Trading Nation.”
Indeed, doubts were sown this week surrounding the yet-to-be-released iPhone, and Apple shares fell more than 3 percent to post its worst week since mid-June.
Apple, the largest component in the S&P 500, was the biggest drag on the index this week. Shares dipped in Thursday trading following a Wall Street Journal report that the new iPhone could face production issues. According to the report, the $1,000 iPhone could see shipping delays.
Schlossberg said that if indeed the release disappoints the market, the company’s sheer size and massive weighting could present a drag “not just on itself, but to the rest of the market.” Furthermore, the impact of such a dip in the stock upon a tepid release “could be massive, and could trigger a lot of momentum selling all across the board.”
The event in and of itself will be a “seminal” event for the company, Schlossberg said, adding that it must “hit a home run to convince investors that they have something very special that they’re going to be rolling out for the Christmas season.”
In an interview with CNBC’s “Power Lunch” on Tuesday, Gene Munster of Loup Ventures said shares of Apple could tumble 10 percent in the next one to three months, following the iPhone launch.
“The trading history over the past four years is a little bit difficult to look at — just what happens when the product’s announced to three months after,” he said Tuesday.
“But the biggest runups it’s had going into a product cycle would suggest, typically, that you have a tail-off. And I would expect the same thing,” said Munster, who was formerly a closely watched Apple analyst at Piper Jaffray.
Still, if an investor is a long-term holder of Apple shares, Schlossberg said, “I still think it’s very much a good play, because Apple really does have a tremendous amount of assets under its umbrella. However, if you’re trading this in the short term, and Apple really fails to impress the market, it could be in for a pretty severe correction.”
Shares of Apple fell nearly 2 percent on Friday, its worst session in three weeks.
Source: Tech CNBC
Why Apple’s iPhone release could take down the market next week