Apple crunched by negative views

Shares in Apple moved lower on Wednesday after trimmed forecasts from Credit Suisse were followed by a negative write-up by a prominent investment manager.

Apple fell from almost $121 to below $117 on Tuesday on the back of Credit Suisse cut 2016 earnings per share estimate by 6% to $9.54 due to weaker supply-chain orders for the iPhone.

According to the Swiss bank's Asia Technology Team, Apple had lowered its component orders by as much as 10%.

That indicated the tech giant was facing "weak demand" for the new iPhone 6s, leading to forecasts for calendar-2016 iPhone builds being lowered to 222m from 242m.

CS believed the continued weak supply chain news "could weigh on Apple shares for the next few weeks/quarters" but said the near-term pressures it believed that iPhone installed base will grow to 615mn over time and that there were indication that it may intend to launch a 4-inch screen device in the future.

Overnight, further pressure on the shares came from Seabreeze Partners Management president Doug Kass, who said he was keeping his short position on Apple, centered in on the fact that its earnings and revenue growth were slowing.

Apple shares were down 0.8% at $115.87 by 1442 GMT on Wednesday.