© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: The logo of an Apple Store is seen in Washington, U.S. January 27, 2022. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo/File Photo
(Reuters) – Shares of Apple Inc (NASDAQ:) fell 4% in premarket trading on Wednesday and piled pressure on other growth stocks following a report that the technology giant technology was abandoning its plans to increase production of the latest model of its flagship iPhone.
Bloomberg reported earlier that Apple had asked its suppliers to scale back efforts to ramp up assembly of its iPhone 14 lineup to 6 million units in the second half of the year due to demand. disappointing.
Shares of the world’s most valuable public company fell to $145.89 and were on course to open at a two-month low. [.N]
Other growth stocks including Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:), Amazon.com (NASDAQ:), Google-parent Alphabet (NASDAQ:) and Tesla (NASDAQ:) Inc fell between 1.5% and 3% on the news.
“Weaker consumer demand is to be expected when utility bills go up, interest rates go up, mortgage costs go up…discretionary spending is going to be curtailed by that,” said Patrick Armstrong, chief investment officer at Plurimi. wealth. in London.
“Apple isn’t immune to this and it’s probably symptomatic of what’s going on at a lot of different companies right now.”
Interest-rate-sensitive growth stocks have been hit hard this year by the rapid pace of interest rate hikes by the US Federal Reserve.
The growth index has lost 29% this year, compared to a drop of 17% for its value counterpart.
Chipmaker shares fell on the news, with Apple vendors Broadcom (NASDAQ:), Qualcomm (NASDAQ:) and Taiwan Semiconductor, Skyworks Solutions (NASDAQ:) and ON Semiconductor down around 1.2% and 2.8%.
Apple’s suppliers in Europe – STMicroelectronics, BE Semiconductor, Nordic Semiconductor, ASM International (OTC:), Infineon (OTC:) and ASML – fell between 1.6% and 4.7%.
