Will Apple’s Shares Drop Back Below $100?

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 13, 3:47AM EST · Published Sep 8, 3:08PM EDT

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Will Apple’s Shares Drop Back Below $100? — © courtesy of Apple Inc.

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) shares have spent much of the year to date trading below $100. With a bounce well ahead of the iPhone 7 announcement, shares climbed above $100 in late July, and have stayed there ever since. Post release of the iPhone 7, Apple’s shares are off 3% to $105.50. If analysts post estimates that early iPhone 7 sales are poor, the stock may well break below $100 again

The phone has some improvements, but none that would push it well ahead of the features in Samsung’s Galaxy S7. There are unlikely to be lines stretched for miles from Apple stores, or wireless carrier stores, when the phone becomes available.

Perhaps as important, evidence increasingly shows that Apple’s loose grip on the Chinese market is slipping. Not only is Samsung a behemoth there. China-based Oppo, Huawei and Xiaomi have exploited their home court advantage as well. The iPhone 7 features are unlikely to shake the growth these three have posted. Apple CEO Tim Cook has stated on more than one occasion that Greater China, as Apple calls it, is absolutely critical to the company’s success. In the most recent quarter, Apple’s revenue in the region actually dropped from the previous year.

This all leaves Apple one final chance to increase its share price sharply. Sales of the iPhone 7 need to be spectacular in the first few days it is available and then throughout the holiday season. If they are not, and Apple posts weak numbers in the next two quarterly reports, shares are more likely to drop than soar.

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.