Tesla, Apple lose ground as stocks swoon
Local companies caught up in another day of market volatility
Apple, Tesla and Facebook were among the Bay Area companies whose shares fell Wednesday on Wall Street, as the ongoing coronavirus fears continued to batter the U.S. stock market and rattle investors’ fears about the state of the economy.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1,338.46 points, or 6.3%, to end the day at 19,898.92 and close below the 20,000-point mark since February 2017.
The S&P 500 fell by 5.2%, at 2,398.10, and the Nasdaq Composite Index shed 4.7%, to fall to
6,989.84. Earlier in the day, stock trading was halted for 15 minutes on the New York Stock Exchange where S&P fell by more than 7%.
Tesla shares fell 16%, to close at $361.22. Tesla’s human relations director sent an email to company employees says that those involved in “essential” work functions such as vehicle production should continue to come to work. However, questions remained about whether Tesla was violating the shelter-in-place edict that covers seven Bay Area counties in an effort to help reduce the spread of coronavirus in the region.
On Tuesday, Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk had told company employees that he intended to come to work every day, but that it was “totally OK” for any Tesla worker to stay home.
Apple ended the day down by 2.5%, at $246.67 a share. In a sign that business is still going on, Apple on Wednesday released an new iPad Pro starting at $799, as well as new versions of its MacBook Air laptop and Mac Mini computers.
Facebook shares fell by 1.7%, at $146.96, and Google parent company Alphabet ended the day down by 2%, at $1,096.80 a share. The Washington Post reported that Facebook and Google were involved in discussions with the U.S. government about using cell phone location data as part of the effort to stem the coronavirus outbreak.
Among other leading local companies, Intel shares fell almost 5%, to $47.61, AMD gave up 6.6%, to fall to $39.12 a share, HP shares ended the day down almost 9%, at $13.11, and Netflix gave up 1.3%, to close at $315.47 a share.
Cisco Systems was a rare gainer, as its shares rose 4.6%, to close at $315.47.