Apple's stock recovered US$80bn in value through a timely intervention by Tim Cook amidst the chaos caused by a China-induced Black Monday.
Apple CEO Tim Cook helped save Apple nearly US$80bn in market value by sending a timely email to TV host Jim Cramer to soothe markets as tech stocks in Apple, Google and Facebook started to plummet following a China-induced Black Monday.
“I get updates on our performance in China every day, including this morning, and I can tell you that we have continued to experience strong growth for our business in China through July and August,” Cook wrote to Cramer, presenter of CNBC’s Mad Money.
The move soothed Wall Street and helped Apple recover US$78bn of value.
Black Monday, which saw billions wiped off the value of shares around the world over conditions in China’s equities market, saw Apple begin the week with a 10pc plummet in share value.
The Nasdaq Composite Index ended the day down 179.79 points, or 3.9pc. This affected stocks like Google, which was down 4pc to US$618.11, Facebook, which was down 4.6pc to US$82.09 and Apple, which was down 2.5pc to US$103.15.
Microsoft lost 3.2pc of value to close at US$41.71, while Netflix plunged 7pc to close at US$96.88.
Apple’s recovery was particularly stunning as its stock had plunged 13pc during the day before recovering to a 2.5pc drop after Cook’s timely intervention.
“Growth in iPhone activations has actually accelerated over the past few weeks and we have had the best performance of the year for the App Store in China during the last two weeks,” Cook said, admitting his intervention was unusual but necessary.
Tim Cook image by Mike Deerkoski via Flickr/Creative Commons
