[4:00 PM] Apple Stock Watch: Tech Stocks Waltz Into The Weekend Leaving AAPL Without A Dance Card
by Wes George
It was a new economy sort of day. The blue chips on the Dow suffered a second day of interest rate jitters caused by a week of economic data pointing towards an inflationary trend. Meanwhile the tech stocks, inoculated against higher interest rates by their rapid growth powered the Nasdaq ahead.
The Department of Justice and 19 states asked the court to divide Microsoft into two companies. The DOJ document suggests dividing the company into a Windows OS corporation separate from the MS Office software unit. The two companies would not be allowed to rejoin for a decade. Moreover, Bill Gates and other top executives would be allowed to own shares in only one of the two companies. Microsoft will have an opportunity to reply to the court on May 10th and is expected to appeal the judgment.
The Mac Observer Stock Watch Virtual Portfolio had a good day as Akamai and IBM moved higher.
Apple sagged 2 11/16 or -2.12% to close at 124 1/16 on weak volume of 2.16 million shares.
The Nasdaq gained 80 points (2.13%) to closed at 3854 on volume of 1.5 billion shares traded. The Nasdaq is up about 10% for the week. For the month of April software stocks traded down by 13.7%, while the computer hardware sector shed about 8.0%.
The Dow drifted lower through out the day and closed down 144 points (-1.33%) to close at 10743 on light volume of 911 million shares.
After Thursday's strong employment cost index number there has been speculation that the Federal Reserve may raise interest rates at the next FOMC meeting by as much as 50 basis points instead of the usual 25. The Dow is off about 1.0% for the week.
Utilities were a big winner in April on the NYSE, climbing 8.9%. REITs also did well for the month, rising 6.4%. Drug stocks were up 7.3% and HMOs gained 8.4%.
The S&P 500 lost 11.79 points (-0.80%) to close at 1453.13.
In Apple related businesses: Akamai gained 15 3/4 to close at 98 7/8 leading a general surge in many Internet infrastructure stocks. ARM Holdings gained 1 5/8 to close at 31 3/4. Adobe traded lower by 2 1/2 to close at 120 15/16. Earthlink climbed 13/16 to close at 18 7/8. Motorola climbed 2 1/2 to close at 119 dollars. IBM gained 7/8 to 111 1/2. Macromedia soared 8 1/4 to 87 dollars
Apple's competitors: Hewlett Packard lost 2 7/8 to close at 135 dollars. Intel gained 1 1/2 to close at 126 13/16. Gateway gained 1/8 to close at 55 3/8. Compaq lost a buck to close at 29 dollars. Shares of Microsoft traded flat to 69 3/4.
The bellwether 30-year US Treasury bond climbed 12/32 to 103 29/32. The yield, which moves inversely to the price, dropped to 5.96% after being as high as 6.02% earlier. The long bond last visited 6.0% on March 24th.
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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