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.