Morning Market Roundup: China’s Hard Landing, Apple’s New All-Time Stock High

Here’s what’s important in the financial world this morning:

China: According to a JPMorgan Chase & Co. analyst, China’s economy has already entered a “hard landing.”

“If you look at the Chinese data, you should stop debating about a hard landing. China is in a hard landing. Car sales are down, cement production is down, steel production is down, construction stocks are down. It’s not a debate anymore, it’s a fact,” the Hong Kong-based analyst, Adrian Mowat, said.

The market responded to the comments with the Shanghai Composite Index dropping 2.6 percent on Wednesday, its greatest decline since Nov. 30, reported Bloomberg.

Tech: On Thursday, the Hague District Court rejected Samsung’s attempt to ban Apple’s iPhones and iPads in the Netherlands. This come as a victory for Apple’s against Samsung as the court had ruled that Samsung will be unable to collect a license on its 3G patents for Apple’s iPhone 4S and possibly other Apple devices using Qualcomm chips. With the ruling, Apple may be motivated to continue utilizing Qualcomm chips in the future for iPhones and iPads.

More good news for Apple Inc. The stock reached a new high on Wednesday, rising 3.8 percent to $589.58. The company now has a value of close to $550 billion, double of Microsoft’s worth. Adding to the Apple’s rise was a bullish research note by Morgan Stanley and Canaccord’s Mike Walkley. He wrote that shipping wait times for the new iPad has extended to 2-3 weeks and that for the year, Apple expects to sell 65.6 million iPads in 2012 and 90.6 million in 2013.

U.K. & EU: Fitch Ratings confirmed a AAA credit rating for the U.K. but it did change its outlook from stable to negative. The agency had mostly positive remarks about the country’s budget reform efforts, but warned in a press release that there is “very limited fiscal space to absorb further adverse economic shocks.”

[Editor’s note: the above is a cross post that originally appeared on Wall St. Cheat Sheet.]