Today's News On One Page
September 23rd, 1999
[4:30 PM] Apple Stock Watch: Apple Tumbles Another 10% In Market Bloodbath Apple's stock plummeted again today in one of the bloodiest days on Wall Street in the last several years. Tech stocks started a sell-off that quickly spread to the rest of the markets and eventually brought the Dow below the 200 Day Moving Average, a number considered to be a key support level. Breaking below that level is considered a possible signal that the markets could head even lower. According to a Reuters report:
Steve Ballmer, the balding President of Microsoft, also caused a ruckus when he announced publicly that he felt tech stocks were overvalued. According to a report from The Motley Fool:
Apple ended up falling 7 points to close at 63 5/16, a loss of 7 or another 9.96% on top of the 12.41% it fell on Tuesday after issuing an earnings warning. SInce its record high reached on Monday's closing of 79 1/16, Apple has fallen some 19.90%. Volume continued to be heavy with 10,204,80 shares trading hands. Combined with the shares traded on yesterday and Tuesday, Apple has had almost 3 times normal weekly volume in just the last three days. The damage was not limited to Apple however. Macromedia, Motorola, and Symantec also saw losses, though Adobe managed to post a 1 point gain. On the PC front, all the major players also got bloody noses with Intel, Microsoft, Dell, IBM, Gateway 2000, Hewlett-Packard, and Compaq all closing lower. The Dow closed at 10318.59, a loss of 205.48, while the Nasdaq closed at 2749.83, down 108.33. For full quotes for all the companies mentioned in this article, we have assembled this set of quotes at Yahoo! for your reference. We also have these same quotes reported live (20 minute delay) on our home page. For other stories regarding Apple's stock activity, visit our Apple Stock Watch Special Report. The Mac Observer Spin: Hear, hear! Mr. Ballmer! For once we agree with you, Microsoft's stock is certainly overvalued as are many tech and Internet stocks. Apple is the one exception, being vastly undervalued when compared to the rest of the bloated tech and Internet stocks. As for where we will go next: Analysts spent the day answering the question of "where is the bottom of this market?" by asking "Where is the bottom of this market?" A viscous circle indeed. There seem to be very few people who know what's going to happen next, and that most certainly includes The Mac Observer. It is possible that investors could once again look at Apple as a safe stock due to its very low P/E ratio, but it is also possible that Apple's stock will remain mired in the muck of the tech sector until good news like the impending iMac upgrade is announced. It is also possible that Apple will simply continue to be swept along by overwhelming market forces no matter which way the tide runs. |
[2:45 PM] Team Mac Observer Slips One Place, We Need Your Help!
Team Mac Observer, our SETI@home team, has slipped out of the Top 20 Club Teams, and we need your help. We need every Team member to make sure that their machines are crunching data whenever you aren't using it, and if you haven't already signed up, we need you to join!
Since the formation of Team Mac Observer in June of this year, we have rocketed up the Top 100 Club Teams, showing how fast the Mac is at crunching numbers. We have 277 members and have gotten as far as the number #19 team, beating out hundreds and hundreds of other club teams, and have a very fast average of 17 hours and 20 minutes per work unit. In fact, we have one of the fastest Mac teams in the project, beating out even Apple Computer's Corporate team which has an average of 18 hours and 6 minutes per work unit! In the last few days though, Team Denmark and a bunch of Unix geeks calling themselves Chicago Area UNIX Admins have chased us back down to #21. So help us start climbing again and make sure you are crunching or sign up now! It really is easy. We have all the instructions you will need.
If you still need another reason to join, the Mac platform is the #2 ranked platform, although we are now far ahead of #3 Sun-Sparc-Solaris platform. Who's the #1 platform? You guessed it, Windows. So if you want to help catch up to Windows, join now! The Mac Observer Spin: This is a very fun project to participate in and the screen saver is handy, and very easy to use. Oh, we have nothing against Unix or Unix geeks, we are Mac geeks ourselves after all. :-) |
[2:15 PM] MacSoldiers Seeks New Daily Editor
Our good friends at MacSoldiers are looking for a new daytime editor. Jon Bonner sent us a note detailing the requirements. According to MacSoldiers:
If you are interested in helping to run a Mac web site, let M. Bonner know. If you would like more information abut MacSoldiers, go and check it out! The Mac Observer Spin: Judging from some of the mail we get from people who think they could do it better, there must be some interest out there! :-) [Editor's Note: We apologize for that last joke, but it seems we couldn't resist...] |
[Column] Ask Dave - Networking and PowerBook Questions Answered |
[1:30 PM] VideoScript Updated With New Performance Enhancers VideoScript Inc. has announced that version 1.8.1 b3 of VideoScript is now available. VideoScript is a scripting language for real-time digital video and image processing. According to VideoScript, Inc.:
The new Beta is free to registered owners of VideoScript Pro and VideoScript Lite. The full version has a wide array of prices. You can find more information at the company's web site. |
[8:30 AM] Data Hammer Web Summary Tool Updated Glucose has released a maintenance update to the World Wide Web summary tool, Data Hammer. Data Hammer 2.2.5 allows web based "articles" to be summarized and presented in abstract form. According to Glucose:
Data Hammer is available from the Glucose web site and is currently listed at US$24.95. You can find more information, at the company's web site. The Mac Observer Spin: Data Hammer is one of the finest names for an app that we have ever heard. We have not used the product, but we love the name. :-) On a more serious note, there is a huge potential market for this product. As our society gets closer and closer to an information overload state, more and more people will no doubt appreciate the ability to have their information cut down into more manageable levels. |
[8:30 AM] Atomic Mac Updated With New Super-Heavy Elements
Black Cat Systems has release version 3.5.1 of the Atomic Mac. The Atomic Mac is a periodic table of the elements on steroids for the MacOS. Version 3.5.1 is a maintenance release adding new features while addressing and correcting known bugs. According to Black Cat Systems:
The Atomic Mac is available as shareware for US$25. You can find more information at the company's web site. |