Lines may be forming for Apple's latest gadget, but investors couldn't run away fast enough Wednesday.Following news of the latest security attack of Apple's iCloud service over the weekend and news of a smartphone partnership between Samsung and Facebook (FB), Apple's AAPL shares were under major pressure.
Shares of Apple Wednesday fell $4.36, or 4.2%, to $98.94. That's the biggest dollar decline by Apple since it lost $6.19, or 8%, to $71.17 on a split-adjusted basis on Jan. 28, 2014, according to data from Yahoo Finance. Since Apple is the most valuable U.S. company, with a market value of more than $618 billion, Wednesday's decline cost investors $26.1 billion.
To put the day's decline in perspective, the market value lost in Apple in one day exceeds the entire value of more than half the companies in the Standard & Poor's 500. For instance, the entire company Marriott International (MAR) is valued at $20.2 billion.
Apple's decline even pushed the entire broad Standard & Poor's 500 into the red. The decline in Apple stock shaved 2.97 points off the S&P 500. Had Apple been unchanged, the S&P 500 would have been up 1.41 points. Instead, the S&P 500 fell 1.56 points to 2000.72.