An Apple Store in the Jiefangbei commercial district, adorned with a golden apple and snake motif to celebrate the Chinese Year of the Snake, on Jan. 14, 2025 in Chongqing, China.
Cheng Xin | Getty Images News | Getty Images
This report is from today’s CNBC Daily Open, our international markets newsletter. CNBC Daily Open brings investors up to speed on everything they need to know, no matter where they are. Like what you see? You can subscribe here.
What you need to know today
S&P 500 snaps three-day winning streak
U.S. markets fell on Thursday, with the S&P 500 snapping its three-day winning streak. Treasury yields retreated further on waning inflation fears. The pan-European Stoxx 600 index added 0.98%. Richemont jumped 16% after reporting a better-than-expected 10% increase in fiscal third-quarter sales, pushing up other stocks in the luxury sector.
Apple falls
Apple shares slumped 4% on Thursday, with losses nearly at 12% from the stock’s most recent peak in December. The slide comes after a report Thursday from market research firm Canalys said the iPhone maker had fallen to third place in terms of smartphones sold in China in 2024, behind homegrown manufacturers Vivo and Huawei.
Potential U.S. Treasury secretary testifies
Scott Bessent, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for Treasury secretary, testified Thursday before the Senate Finance Committee. During the session, Bessent, a hedge-fund manager, said Trump’s proposed policies won’t cause inflation, described U.S. spending as “out of control,” and threw cold water on the idea of a possible U.S. digital currency.
Meager economic growth in UK
The U.K. economy grew 0.1% in November, data from the Office of National Statistics showed Thursday. The growth was lower than the 0.2% month-on-month expansion expected in a Reuters poll. The disappointing gross domestic product figure is fueling expectations that the Bank of England will cut interest rate at its next meeting on Feb. 6.
[PRO] S&P should hit 6,600, UBS says
With two inflation reports coming in muted, the stock market looks poised to rise further in 2025, according to UBS. The bank expects the S&P 500 to reach 6,600 by December, which implies an 11% upside from its current level. Solita Marcelli, chief investment officer for the Americas at UBS Global Wealth Management, explains UBS’ optimistic view.
The bottom line
The drop in Apple shares Thursday broke a three-day winning streak for the S&P.
Reports of falling iPhone sales in China dragged down Apple shares, leading to their worst day since Aug. 5. Other “Magnificent 7” stocks also fell in sympathy: Tesla retreated 3.4%, Nvidia lost nearly 2%, and Alphabet declined around 1.4%.
Apple has been the worst-performing stock in the Magnificent Seven so far in 2025.
With all of the “Magnificent 7” stocks — which drove more than half of the S&P 500’s gains in 2024 — ending the session in the red, the broad-based index couldn’t sustain its forward momentum from Wednesday.
The S&P slipped 0.21%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.16% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 0.89%.
That’s despite the earnings season being off to a strong start. Out of the companies that have reported, 77% have topped expectations, according to FactSet data.
Bank of America and Morgan Stanley reported expectations-beating earnings. But they ultimately weren’t enough to lift indexes, suggesting that the stock market’s performance still hinges on tech.
“Earnings have started out with the banks being definitely a positive, but it seems there’s going to have to be more than that, and that’s what today’s action seems like,” said Keith Buchanan, senior portfolio manager at Globalt Investments.
That said, tech stocks and markets could get a leg up if inflation looks to be under control later in the year.
U.S. Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller told CNBC in a Thursday interview that, if inflation data comes in benign, he “can certainly see rate cuts happening sooner than maybe the markets are pricing in.”
More optimistically, Waller even suggested that there could be “four cuts, three cuts, depending on what the data tells you this year.”
If that were to happen, shares of Apple — as well as other rate-sensitive tech stocks — could defy gravity to soar again.
— CNBC’s Jeff Cox, Hakyung Kim and Sarah Min contributed to this report.