[4:00 PM] Apple Stock Watch: Apple Climbs Back To Close At 128
by Wes George
The stock markets soared when the unemployment rate was reported as higher than expected and wages rose less than predicted. What is normally bad news for most people is music to ears on Wall Street. Investors hope that the Federal Reserve need not raise interest rates endlessly to slow the torrid growth of the US economy. Apple floated higher on the rising tide.
No one expects the Fed to alter their course towards higher Fed fund rates. However, some money mangers were worried that the Fed might hike rates a full half point later this month, rather than maintaining their cautious quarter point pace. Because of today's mild unemployment data, a half point interest rate hike now seem highly unlikely.
Apple gained 6 dollars or 4.92% to close at 128 on weak volume of 2.8 million shares traded. Apple's strong come back after yesterday's 6.0% decline further indicates that the stock is in the process of defining a new higher trading range. Today is AAPL's third day of trading well above the old pre-Wednesday record high of 119 dollars.
The Dow rose 202 points (1.99%) to close at 10367, on volume of 1.1 billion shares traded. The gains made were broad and included many of the much beaten down bellwether stocks after the 1700 point slide from the Dow's high in December. Some analysts feel that a bottom has been reached for the industrials. The Dow gained about 500 points this week or 5.4%.
The Nasdaq gained 160 points (3.37%) to close at 4909, for a new record high and the first time the Nasdaq has ever been above the 4900 level. 2.1 billion shares traded hands. The Nasdaq gained 7.0% this week.
The S&P 500 gained 27.41 points (1.98%) to close at 1409.17. The Russell 2000 also hit a new high today.
In Apple related businesses, Akamai gained 3/8 to close at 268 3/8 dollars, while ARM Holdings gained 14 3/8 to close at 243 dollars. IBM gained 5 7/8 to close at 109 dollars. Earthlink gained 1 9/16 to close at 24 7/8. Adobe gained 10 dollars to close at 90 5/8.
A Reuters' article reported that, "An investment group led by cellular pioneer Craig McCaw said on Friday it had decided against buying bankrupt satellite telephone firm Iridium LLC, perhaps dealing the final blow to the $5 billion venture that once promised to connect anybody, anywhere, anytime." Motorola advanced 1 1/8 to close at 175 5/16.
Apple's competitors: Dell gained 1 5/16 to end at 46 1/4. Gateway gained 2 bucks to close at 69 5/8. Hewlett Packard gained 4 7/16 to close at 138 7/16. Compaq was up 1 1/8 at 27 13/16. Microsoft gained 2 3/4 to close at 96 1/8. Intel gained 3 1/2 to close at a new high of 119 1/4. Palm Inc., on the day after their IPO took them as high as 165 dollars per share, settled down 14 13/16 to close at 80 1/4. 3Com, the parent company of Palm Inc., gained 1 1/4 to close at 83 1/16.
Economic data news: The unemployment rate climbed to 4.1% in February, its first increase since June. The Labor Department said that winter storms caused weather sensitive industries to slow down the pace. Construction industries lost 26,000 jobs in February and less jobs were added in other sectors than forecast.
Wages grew at an annual rate of 3.6% in February, a bit faster than in January but still well off the peak reached in April of 1998.
In another report, the Commerce Department said that orders to US factories fell 1.1% in January to $375.21 billion, the largest drop since last April.
For full quotes on all the companies mentioned in this article, we have assembled this set of quotes at Yahoo! for your reference. We also have many of 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.
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