| 1 | FILE - In this April 22, 2014 file photo, a man uses his phone near an Apple store in Beijing. |
| 2 | Apple Inc., the world's most valuable public company, saw its stock price drop for a fifth straight day on Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2015, as investors fretted over China's economy and whether Apple can keep growing at the pace it's maintained over the last few quarters. |
| 3 | SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Apple is slumping as the usually high-flying tech stock struggles with the burden of raised expectations. |
| 4 | The world's most valuable public company saw its stock price drop for a fifth straight day on Tuesday, falling as much as $5.19, or 4.4 percent, to $113.25 as investors fret over China's economy and whether Apple can keep growing at the pace it's maintained over the last few quarters. |
| 5 | Apple shares closed Tuesday at $114.64 - down 14 percent since hitting a record $133.60 in February. |
| 6 | That puts Apple in a "correction," which is Wall Street jargon for price declines of 10 percent or more from a peak. |
| 7 | The slide has wiped out more than $96 billion in market value. |
| 8 | The stock also dropped below its 200-day moving average, a technical indicator that traders use to gauge momentum. |
| 9 | And as a sign of Apple's outsized role in the market, its decline Tuesday accounted for more than half of the 47-point drop in the Dow Jones industrial average for the day. |
| 10 | Apple is also by far the biggest component in the Standard & Poor's 500, making up 3.6 percent of the index, which is a benchmark for most mutual funds. |
| 11 | Apple sold more than 47 million of its signature iPhones in the last quarter, or 35 percent more than a year earlier. |
| 12 | That drove the company's profit and earnings above Wall Street estimates. |
| 13 | But demand for the iPhone and Apple's new smartwatch still fell short of some analysts' more bullish predictions, and executives gave a forecast for the current period that was also lower than some analysts expected. |
| 14 | That has sent the stock into a decline since Apple reported earnings on July 21. |
| 15 | Shareholders are also worried about recent hiccups in China's economy, because the country is viewed as one of Apple's biggest markets for expansion, said Daniel Ives, a managing director and senior analyst for FBR Capital Markets. |
| 16 | He added that investors are looking ahead to the December quarter, which is traditionally Apple's strongest. |
| 17 | The company sold 74 million iPhones during that period last year, a 46 percent jump. |
| 18 | But with a much larger volume to compare against, it will be more difficult for Apple to show that kind of year-over-year growth again. |
| 19 | But new products like Apple Pay and the expected release of new iPhone models this fall could give the company a boost, Ives said. |
| 20 | Apple's current slump isn't as severe as an earlier slide that began almost three years ago, in a period when investors worried that the Cupertino, California, company had run out of ideas to counter growing competition from other smartphone and tablet makers. |
| 21 | Apple shares fell 45 percent from a split-adjusted peak of $100.72 in September 2012 to a low of $55.01 in April 2013. |
| 22 | By June of that year, however, the stock had embarked on a steady climb upward again. |