Apple Inc. (AAPL) Erases Stock Losses After Turbulent Monday Morning Market Open

Apple Inc. has recovered its losses after a rough Monday morning market open on the stock market. As of 12:24 p.m. EDT its stock price climbed to $108.32, more than 2 percent above its Friday closing price of $105.76.

Apple wasn’t alone in its initial plunge after Wall Street's opening bell Monday morning. U.S. stocks took a sharp nosedive, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeting more than 1,000 points, in part due concerns surrounding a weakening Chinese market. Google (GOOG), Amazon (AMZN), Netflix (NFLX) and (FB), were among the companies that took the brunt of the initial stock sell-off, before the U.S. markets recovered later in the day.

Despite fears about the Chinese economy, Apple CEO Tim Cook remained optimistic. “Obviously I can't predict the future, but our performance so far this quarter is reassuring,” Cook wrote in an email to CNBC’s Jim Cramer. “Additionally, I continue to believe that China represents an unprecedented opportunity over the long term as LTE penetration is very low and most importantly the growth of the middle class over the next several years will be huge.” [Cook was referring to Long-Term Evolution, a wirless communication standard for moving data via mobile phones and data terminals. Low penetration in China suggests there is plenty of potential for Apple to grow inside the company's No. 2 market.]

Some investment firms saw the initial nosedive as an opportunity to buy.

“While we acknowledge this ‘white knuckle’ period for Apple (and its investors), with less than 30% of its customers upgrading to iPhone 6 to date, a major product cycle ahead with the launch of 6s (Sept. 9), the China market representing a $100 billion market opportunity for over the next three years ... we believe that Apple is a uniquely compelling name to buy in this hurricane-like market downdraft this morning,” Daniel Ives, managing director at FBR Capital Markets, wrote in a Monday morning research note.

For now, the U.S. remains Apple’s largest market. But China is not too far behind. The country took second place, accounting for $13.2 billion of revenue during Apple’s fiscal 2015 third quarter, up 112 percent from $6.2 billion in the same period in 2014. Overall, Apple pulled in $10.7 billion in profit for the quarter. Despite gains, sales of the iPhone fell short of Wall Street expectations at 47.5 million units, compared with optimistic analyst projections ranging between 48 and 50 million units.