Apple stock takes a 9% dive due to earnings notice
Thursday, January 3, 2019 at 10:47AM 
By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla
We're quickly seeing the market react to Apple's bombshell announcement of a lower stock earnings guidance. Yesterday, Apple CEO Tim Cook issued a letter to Apple investors revising the company's earnings guidance, a move that hasn't happened since 2002.
Cook implied various macroeconomic factors, including less spending in China, a major market for Apple, for the lower earnings in Q1, usually Apple's strongest quarter. As Cook mentioned in a TV interview, there are various reasons for this lower earnings expectation, many of which were out of Apple's control.
The brewing US trade-war with China and less spending from that country, the staggered iPhone release schedule in 2018 (which saw a month's apart launch for iPhone XS and iPhone XR) slower ramping up of product for iPad Pro. Mac mini and MacBook Air, as well as the $29 battery replacement service that took a bite out of potential earnings.