Plagued with allegations of hardware that’s a little too bendy for its newest iPhone and a problematic software update, shares of Apple are bending.
Shares of Apple are down $3.87, or 3.9%, to $97.95 Thursday, breaking the extremely important $100 a share mark. Investors and traders are carefully watching the $100 level since that’s the same level the stock hit in 2012 before beginning a painful roughly 50% decline.
The stock has now lost a staggering $23 billion since the iPhone 6 was released on Sept. 19. The day’s loss in Apple stock exceeds the entire market value of more than half the individual companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index — including individual companies such as Macy’s (M) and Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG).
What’s different this time is that there are serious questions about Apple’s once-vaunted quality standards this time. While consumers are used to Apple not being first — for instance following other phone makers with a larger screen — they like to think of Apple’s goods as perfect out of the gate. But suggestions that the iPhone 6 Plus can be bent by hand (or in the front pocket) and widespread reports of connectivity and battery woes caused by the update to the operating system, the popular theory of Apple’s products that they “just work” is under assault.