With a decline of nearly 25% in less than eight weeks, the recent plunge in Apple (AAPL) has been noteworthy enough, but when you consider the fact that it came from a point where the company had a market capitalization of over $1.1 trillion, we’re not sure if a company has ever lost that much in market cap over such a short period of time. Heck, the $284 billion in market cap that has disappeared from AAPL since its high in early October is greater than the entire market cap of all but nine companies in the US.
The chart below shows historical drawdowns in AAPL stock from an all-time high going back to when the iPhone was first introduced. The current 20%+ decline is the fourth such drop of more than 20%. Of those prior drawdowns, the only two where the stock dropped by more than 20% in less than 40 trading days occurred in 2008 when the rest of the market was weak as well as 2012 when concerns over competition and shortages of the iPhone 5 hurt results.
