Today’s Change
Current Price
Apple (AAPL 6.41%) made news on the consumer devices side of the business today. The stock closed at $275.15, down 6.12%. Apple fell after it raised prices across Macs, iPads, home devices, and Vision Pro to offset higher memory and storage costs.
Trading volume reached 106.4 million shares, coming in about 119% above its three-month average of 48.5 million shares.
How the markets moved today
The S&P 500 (^GSPC 0.01%) slipped 0.01% to 7,357, while the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC 0.46%) fell 0.46% to 25,359. Among consumer electronics and personal computing hardware and software peers, Microsoft (MSFT 3.66%) closed at $352.83, down 3.46%, and Alphabet (GOOGL 0.30%) ended at $343.71, down 0.46%, as Apple and other large technology names faced selling.
What this means for investors
The market tide turned against Apple and other hardware manufacturers today after Micron Technology (MU +14.50%) reported stellar earnings after the bell yesterday. Micron stock soared nearly 16% after blockbuster earnings that included revenue quadrupling year over year and a record adjusted gross margin of about 85%.
Investors correctly concluded that meant advanced memory pricing continues to soar, potentially impacting the bottom lines of companies like Apple. While soaring memory and storage costs aren’t a new data point for investors, that confirmation came as Apple announced price increases on several of its products.
That leads to two questions for investors. First, will consumers absorb the higher price environment for Apple devices, or will sales begin to lag? Second, what will Apple’s profit margin look like going forward? That uncertainty led to today’s stock sell-off.
Howard Smith has positions in Alphabet, Apple, and Microsoft. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Apple, Micron Technology, and Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
