You would have thought that new iPhones, the Apple Watch and an extensive mobile payments service would be enough to keep Wall Street happy.
But even a private concert by U2, and a free copy of its new album “Songs of Innocence,” wasn’t enough to impress investors, who sent Apple shares down 37 cents to close at $97.99 a share for the day. During the day shares hovered around $100 before ultimately stumbling, so what caused investors to sour against Apple?
It may have been as simple as learning that the Watch was not going to be available until 2015, after the all-important holiday shopping season, or that Wall Street was largely expecting everything Apple had to offer: bigger iPhones to compete against devices made by Samsung and Nokia, a mobile payments service that would compete against PayPal, and a luxury smartwatch.
But whatever it was, it was contagious with the shares of most tech companies in close proximity to Apple also sinking today. Here’s a look at how some of the adjacent stocks fared after today’s iAnnouncements:
EBay: eBay investors did not take kindly to the news that there was a new PayPal competitor in town.
Shares of the PayPal parent fell $1.50, or 2.8 percent, to $52.73. Analysts at Robert Baird wrote in a note to investors that the service will most likely compete against PayPal, although it still isn’t clear how open Apple will be to working with third-parties once the service goes live in October.
T-Mobile: To the surprise of many, Apple announced it was partnering with Bellevue-based T-Mobile to enable phone calls over WiFi when your cellular connection is poor. Apple will be utilizing T-Mobile’s nationwide Voice over LTE network.
Despite being Apple’s first partner to enable WiFi calling, T-Mobile’s shares fell 50 cents, or 1.6 percent, to close at $30.30. Of course, investors could be in a wait-and-see mode in anticipation of the company’s press event tomorrow.
Amazon: The e-commerce company’s shares tumbled big-time in reaction to today’s news, sliding by 3.7 percent, or $12.59 a share, to $329.75. News that Apple had entered the payments space didn’t help, but it was likely still recovering from yesterday’s announcement that it was dropping the price of the Amazon Fire Phone to 99 cents, which signaled that sales were doing as poorly as people suspected.
Microsoft: As the owner of Nokia, and the maker of Windows Phone, this is one bright spot on an overall harsh day for U.S.-based tech stocks that really can’t be explained. Shares basically remained flat, which means Microsoft’s investors had no reaction to Apple’s news. Shares closed at $46.76, up 29 cents, or less than a percent.
Google: The Android-maker, and the company that rolled out NFC-enabled payments many years ago, was not as lucky as Microsoft. The company’s shares were down $8.71, or 1.5 percent, to close at $581.01 a share.
Starbucks: While the coffee-maker played a very minor role in today’s announcement, it did get a mention. Starbucks is among a short list of app-makers that said it will let its customers use Apple Pay inside of its app to pay for coffee. The company’s shares remained fairly neutral, trading down only slightly by 55 cents to $77.12.
