May 30th, 2000

[12:00 PM] Wall Street Analyst Slams Apple, AAPL Tanks by Wes George Lehman Brothers initiated coverage of Apple today with a 'neutral' rating. Wall Street reacted by tanking Apple's stock while the so-called summer rally on the Nasdaq appears to begin in earnest. Dan Niles formerly of Robertson Stephens recently jumped ship for Lehman Brothers and today he announced his ratings. Mr. Niles is hot for Gateway (GTW) and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), starting coverage for them with an "outperform" rating. He also likes Dell (DELL), Micron Technology (MUEI) and Compaq (CPQ) enough to place a "buy" rating on them. But Mr. Niles feels like Apple Computer Co. (AAPL) is worth only a "neutral" rating, which roughly translates into something between "don't buy" and "maybe sell". AAPL was trading at $83.69, down $2.69 at 12:39 EST with volume above 3 million shares trading hands. The Mac Observer Spin: Is Mr. Niles trying to tell us something? Robert Stephens initiated coverage of Apple in April 1999 with a "long term attractive" and later upgraded that recommendation to "buy". A year later, Mr. Niles has a new job and his out look on Apple has gone sour. Most analysts covering AAPL would disagree with Mr. Niles opinion.