U.S. Stock Futures Fall After Apple Misses Estimates
U.S. stock futures fell after Apple Inc. (AAPL), the world’s biggest company by market value, missed analysts’ profit estimates for the first time since at least 2004. The euro weakened after Moody’s Investors Service cut Spain’s credit rating.
Standard & Poor’s 500 Index futures expiring in December declined 0.6 percent to 1,216.10 at 9:10 a.m. Tokyo time, after the measure added 2 percent yesterday. Apple sank 6.7 percent to $393.97. Futures on the Nasdaq-100 Index, which gets 15 percent of its value from Apple, lost 1 percent. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index added 0.5 percent as Japanese and Australian shares gained. The euro depreciated 0.2 percent to $1.3728. Oil and copper slid.
Apple’s income trailed the average analyst forecast by 3.5 percent after customers delayed purchases before a new iPhone was released. Moody’s cut Spain to A1 from Aa2, citing the lack of a “credible resolution” to Europe’s debt crisis. While U.S. equities extended gains in the final hour of trading yesterday after the Guardian reported Germany and France agreed to boost the region’s rescue fund, a person with direct knowledge of the talks told Bloomberg News no deal has been reached.
“There’s just no conviction that seems to survive,” John Carey, a Boston-based money manager at Pioneer Investments, said in a telephone interview. The firm oversees about $250 billion. “Apple’s results have disappointed some people. People are wondering where the economy is going, what earnings will look like and whether Europe will work its way through this crisis.”
Stocks rallied yesterday amid optimism about the European debt crisis and after Bank of America Corp. (BAC) posted better-than- estimated results. Treasuries fell, while commodities and the euro advanced.

