'Lackluster' iPhone 15 sales lead to stock downgrade and Apple losing $100 billion in market value in 1 day — as analyst predicts more of the same for iPhone 16

Apple loses $100B in market value in a single day

A question for Apple fans: How much does Tim Long earn a year?

While you won’t find the Barclays analyst’s salary in a Google search, one could argue that Long’s note to investors on Jan. 2 came with a $100 billion price tag.

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That’s how much the iPhone manufacturer and one of the world’s largest companies shed in value after he and the bank downgraded Apple stock to a “sell” and set a price target of $160 per share.

The reason for Long’s downgrade? “Lackluster” sales of the iPhone 15 and the belief that the upcoming iPhone 16 might see more of the same, according to news outlets citing the note.

“We see no features or upgrades that are likely to make the iPhone 16 more compelling,” the note contends.

Reading tea leaves

The fact is — and “fact” arguably excludes a $100 billion opinion based on a phone no one has seen — Long remains something of an outlier among his peers.

According to a Wall Street Journal roundup of Apple stock, as of Jan. 22, 20 analysts rate it a “buy” compared to the three who rate it a “sell,” a ratio of nearly seven to one. What’s more, Apple has met or exceeded analyst expectations for at least four consecutive quarters.

In investment parlance, Apple remains “overweight.” That means when you factor in the opinions of the 44 total analysts surveyed by the Journal and average them, the conclusion is that Apple stock should perform better in the future — not worse.

But just as motorists love to rubberneck a wreck on the highway, the media loves a good headline. When Apple’s worth dropped $100 billion, it made for one astronomical number — and a sexy one. (Try comparing that to 20 analysts who still love the stock.)

The worrywarts may also ignore another meaningful number: Apple was near a 52-week low about a year ago at around $140 per share. The stock is roughly 37% higher than that low mark. What’s more, Long’s pessimistic target price of $160 is still about 15% above that price.

The point is that no matter how good an analyst Long or his colleagues may be — and he ranks in the top 3% of more than 8,000 Wall Street analysts, according to TipRanks — many different ways exist to weigh a company’s numbers and thus tell many contrasting stories.

Long and short of it

As for Long’s speculating on the next iPhone’s feature set and how consumers will react? That’s an educated guess at best. Only the company itself has any idea what the next product might feature.

One last figure: $2.96 trillion. That’s how much the Journal says Apple is worth, or what Wall Street calls its “market capitalization.” And while Apple shed, as the Journal’s numbers indicate, approximately the combined worth of auto giants Ford and GM, that’s a compact car on a mammoth lot as Apple’s fortunes go — $100 billion amounts to roughly 3% of the tech giant’s value.

So take heart, worried investors. The overriding lesson, pun intended, is that investment is a long game, not a short headline. You want long? If Apple CEO Tim Cook decided to give away $100 million of Apple’s value per day, it would still take him more than 80 years to do it.

Correction, Jan. 22: The headline of this article previously stated Apple lost $1 billion in market value in a single day. The true figure was around $100 billion.

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