You look at Apple today and it feels like a fortress. It's the "safe haven" of the stock market, right? But if you’re asking has apple stock ever drop, you might be surprised at just how violent those falls were. Honestly, there were moments in history where people thought the company was toast. Gone. Done for.
Basically, the "Apple always goes up" narrative is a recent luxury. If you were holding shares in the late 90s or even during the 2008 financial crisis, you probably spent a few nights staring at your ceiling wondering why you bought into a computer company from Cupertino.
The truth is that AAPL has seen some of the most gut-wrenching drawdowns of any blue-chip stock in history. We're talking about losing half its value in a single day.
That Time Apple Lost 50% in 24 Hours
The most famous—or infamous—example of a massive Apple stock drop happened on September 29, 2000. Imagine waking up and realizing half your money vanished overnight. That’s not a metaphor.
Apple issued a warning that its fourth-quarter earnings were going to be a disaster. They blamed "lower than expected" demand and a weak education market. At the time, the dot-com bubble was already leaking air, and the news from Apple was the needle that popped it for many investors.
The stock plummeted 51.89% in a single trading session.
It wasn't just a "bad day." It was a total wipeout. The shares fell from over $26 to about $13. The crazy part? It didn't bounce back the next day. It actually kept sliding, trading sideways and downward until late 2003. If you were looking for a quick recovery, you had to wait four years just to see the stock hit $15 again.
The Modern-Day "Drips" and the 2022 Slump
Fast forward to more recent history. You don't need to go back to the 2000s to find examples of Apple stock dropping. Even in 2022, the stock had a rough go.
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While the world was dealing with rising interest rates and post-pandemic supply chain messiness, Apple wasn't immune. In 2022, the stock finished the year down roughly 26.8%. For a company with a multi-trillion-dollar market cap, that is an insane amount of "wealth" to evaporate in twelve months.
More recently, in early 2025, the stock hit some turbulence again. Investors were worried Apple was "slow" to the AI race. While companies like Nvidia were mooning, Apple was treading water. In the first half of 2025, the stock was actually down about 5% while the rest of the "Magnificent Seven" were mostly in the green. It was a classic "sell the news" situation surrounding the iPhone 17 and their AI strategy.
Why does it keep dropping?
People often get confused because they see "Apple hits all-time high" headlines every other month. But the path to those highs is jagged.
- Valuation Stretch: Sometimes the stock gets "ahead of itself." People get so excited that the price-to-earnings ratio gets bloated, and any tiny bit of bad news—like a weak iPhone shipment report from China—causes a 10% correction.
- Macro Headwinds: Apple is a consumer products company. If people are worried about a recession or if the Fed raises rates, tech stocks are usually the first to get sold off.
- The "Innovation Tax": Every time Apple launches a product that isn't an immediate, world-changing revolution, Wall Street throws a tantrum.
Understanding Stock Splits vs. Real Drops
One thing that trips up new investors is looking at a historical chart and seeing the price go from $500 to $125. You might think, "Wow, did the stock drop 75%?"
Kinda, but not really. That’s usually a stock split.
Apple has split its stock five times.
- 1987 (2-for-1)
- 2000 (2-for-1)
- 2005 (2-for-1)
- 2014 (7-for-1)
- 2020 (4-for-1)
When a split happens, the price drops so more people can afford a single share, but you get more shares to compensate. It’s like cutting a pizza into 8 slices instead of 4. You still have the same amount of pizza; the pieces are just smaller.
If you bought one share at the IPO in 1980 for $22, after all those splits, you’d have 224 shares today. On a split-adjusted basis, that original $22 share actually cost you about **$0.10**.
What to Do When Apple Dips
If you're holding Apple and you see it start to slide, history has a pretty clear message for you. Since that 51% crash in 2000, the stock has gained over 45,000%.
Yes, you read that right.
The people who made the most money weren't the ones who sold during the 2008 financial crisis (where the stock also dropped significantly) or the 2020 COVID crash (where it fell about 35% in a few weeks). The winners were the ones who sat on their hands.
Actionable Steps for the Next Drop:
- Check the "Why": Is the stock dropping because the company is fundamentally broken, or is the whole market just having a bad day? Usually, with Apple, it's the latter.
- Look at Services: Hardware (iPhones) is great, but the "Services" revenue (App Store, iCloud, Music) is high-margin and sticky. If Services are growing, the company's long-term health is usually fine.
- Zoom Out: Don't look at the 5-day chart. Look at the 5-year chart. The tiny blips that feel like disasters today usually look like flat lines when you look at the long-term trajectory.
- Dollar Cost Averaging: Instead of trying to "time the bottom" (which is basically impossible), consider putting in a set amount of money every month. You end up buying more shares when the price is low and fewer when it's high.
Apple's history is proof that even the best companies in the world have terrible years. The stock has dropped, crashed, and burned multiple times. But so far, it has always found a way to climb back out of the hole.
Your next move: Take a look at your portfolio's diversification. If you're 100% in Apple, a 20% drop feels like a crisis. If Apple is 5% of a diversified portfolio, that same drop is just a "bad weather" day that you can easily ignore while waiting for the eventual recovery.