Apple's Plunge Shaves 50 Points From Dow, $40 Bln From Tech Giant's Market Cap

Apple Inc.'s ugly share plunge on Wednesday was shaving roughly 50 points from the Dow Jones Industrial Average in early trade. At its current rate, its 7.4% plunge would mark the Cupertino, Calif.-based company's worst percentage drop in nearly a year and half and would erase about $40 billion in market cap from the world's largest company by market cap, according to Dow Jones research. The slide comes after Apple reported quarterly profit that fell 22.5% and logged its first decline in the sale of iPhones in 13 years. CEO Tim Cook described the results to The Wall Street Journal as "a challenging quarter" and blamed macroeconomic headwinds for the tech behemoth's shortcomings.