The Standard & Poor’s 500 was on track for a decent day–the index was up 0.79% at 12:43 p.m. New York time–and then Bloomberg broke a story, picked up everywhere, reporting that Apple (AAPL) intended to slow hiring and reduce spending growth next year.
The S&P 500 finished the day down 0.84% and Apple shares closed down 2.06%.
The Bloomberg story said that the hiring slowdown wouldn’t affect all teams at Apple and that the company was still planning an aggressive product launch schedule in 2023 that is likely to include a mixed-reality headset.
But the Apple story and the market reaction speak to how worried investors are about growth at technology companies in the coming quarters.
The report of slower hiring at Apple comes after similar reports on a hiring slowdown from Meta Platforms (META), Amazon (AMZN), and Tesla (TSLA).
And the market is getting a steady stream of worrying stories about revenue growth this quarter and next. For example, smartphone shipments declined 9% in the second quarter, according to Canalyis.
Technology earnings hit full stride in the week of July 26 when Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, and others are due to report.
