Apple’s TV, iPhone and Arcade Announcements Do Little to Move the Needle on Wall Street

Wall Street didn’t appear all that impressed with Apple’s annual product reveal event on Tuesday, as shares of the tech and entertainment company remained relatively stagnant after the event wrapped. Apple CEO Tim Cook announced a Nov. 1 launch date and a $4.99 price tag for Apple TV+, the company’s much-anticipated and talked about streaming service. That positions Apple’s streaming effort ahead of Disney’s in terms of timing, and with a slightly lower cost. Still that, along with two new iPhones, a new iPad, Apple Watch and a subscription gaming service, wasn’t enough to give Apple shares any significant boost. Apple, with a market cap of $967.87 billion, was trading around $214 per share during late afternoon trading on Tuesday. The stock closed just 1% above its opening price on Tuesday. Shares of Apple are up roughly 10.0% in the last three months and have gained 35.8% in the year to date. Apple has enjoyed a strong performance on Wall Street so far this year, with its share price climbing more than 30% since early January. That rise has been stalled a bit in the last month, however, as the ongoing U.S.-China trade battle has stifled Apple and much of the market. The tech giant has been forced, in recent years, to contend with declining iPhone and hardware sales. Seemingly, in an attempt to counteract that trend, the company announced that customers who bought a new iPhone, iPad or Mac laptop would receive one free year of its Apple TV+ service. The new streaming service is launching in November with Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston’s drama series “The Morning Show,” Ronald D. Moore’s “For All Mankind,” the Hailee Steinfeld-led comedy “Dickinson” and the Jason Momoa sci-fi series “See,” which dropped its first trailer on Tuesday. In addition to the Apple TV+ announcements, Apple unveiled the new Apple Arcade, giving customers unlimited access to a catalog of more than 100 new, exclusive games, playable across iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac and Apple TV. Apple Arcade, which will launch Sept. 30 with a one-month free trial, is also $4.99 per month. New, updated versions of the Apple Watch and iPad were also announced during the presentation. And then there was iPhone. After last year’s iPhone X, which experienced a drop in sales in the company’s most recent quarter, Apple on Tuesday debuted the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro with six new colors and — what seemed to be the big selling point — new dual cameras on the iPhone 11 that allow for new ultra-wide camera capabilities. The iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max boast a three-camera system with telephoto capabilities.