February 15th, 2000

[3:00 PM] Wall Street Not Afraid To Make MACWORLD Predictions: PowerBooks, PowerMacs & iBooks, Oh My! by Staff Apple's rising stock price, just days before MacWorld Tokyo 2000, has attracted the attention of Wall Street and the analysts. Speculation that Steve Jobs will reveal some new products in his keynote address tomorrow has analysts talking to the press. According to Reuters' report, Steve Fortuna, a Merrill Lynch analyst, told his clients, "Jobs is likely to make some sort of announcements around new products (refreshed PowerBook or some kind of new appliance-class device). We think Jobs may even use the opportunity to add some meat to Apple's Internet strategy." "This is the one that was supposed to happen at Macworld (in January) and didn't," said Lou Mazzucchelli, an analyst at Gerard Klauer Mattison & Co, to Reuters. "Maybe Pismo will emerge." Mazzucchelli also told Reuters that Apple could announce upgrades of both the iBook consumer notebook computer and the G4 Power Macintosh line both with faster processors. "Could there be more surprises? Of course," Mazzucchelli said. For other stories regarding Apple's stock activity, visit our Apple Stock Watch Special Report. The Mac Observer Spin: It's hard to know what Steve and company have planned for MacWorld in Tokyo but if we here at the Mac Observer were betting types we'd put our money on some cool new products announcements, as we have reported earlier. As for the stock price, some juicy new product updates could punch the price above the all time high of 121 1/2. It's interesting how life imitates art, or in this case Wall Street imitates the Mac web community. This same mix of products being suggested by the likes of such industry powerhouses as Lou Mazzuchelli largely mirrors the rumors running around in the Mac web community. The difference being that Mr. Mazzuchelli and the like are far more conservative and circumspect about what they will say. Make of that what you will. Apple