Apple drags Wall Street lower

A video board displays the numbers after the closing bell of the Dow Jones Industrial Average at the New York Stock Exchange on December 20, 2017 in New York. / AFP PHOTO / Bryan R. Smith

NEW YORK: Wall Street’s main indexes came under pressure on Tuesday following a 2.8% drop in Apple’s shares on a report of weak iPhone X demand.

Apple will slash its sales forecast for its flagship phone in the current quarter to 30 million units, down from what it said was an initial plan of 50 million units, Taiwan’s Economic Daily reported, citing unidentified sources.

That, along with some bearish brokerage calls on iPhone X demand, put its shares on track for their worst single-day percentage fall since Aug 10.

Shares of companies that supply parts to Apple, including Broadcom, Skyworks Solutions, Finisar and Lumentum Holdings, fell between 1.8% and 3.5%.

The S&P technology index fell 0.9%, the only loser among the 11 major S&P 500 sectors.

Most markets around the world, including parts of Europe and Asia, were shut on Tuesday. Trading volumes are also expected to be light in the holiday week.

“It’s going to be slow trading for most of the week. A market that’s going to stay within a trading range, we could have a plus or a negative day, but nothing exciting,” said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at First Standard Financial in New York.

At 9:34am ET (1434 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 8.32 points, or 0.03%, at 24,745.74 and the S&P 500 was down 2.4 points, or 0.09%, at 2,680.94.

The Nasdaq Composite was down 29.11 points, or 0.42%, at 6,930.86.

Sucampo Pharma surged 6% after Mallinckrodt said it would acquire the drugmaker for US$1.2bil, to gain access to its constipation drug Amitiza. Mallinckrodt shares rose 4.3%.

Bitcoin traded up more than 12% at US$15,715 recovering from last week’s selloff, which saw the cryptocurrency fall below US$12,000.

Shares of Riot Blockchain, Longfin Corp and Overstock.com rose between 3% and 17%.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE by 1,369 to 1,125. On the Nasdaq, 1,267 issues fell and 1,036 advanced. - Reuters