[4:30 PM] Apple Stock Watch: The Nasdaq & Apple's Stock Tank
by Wes George
The low volume bear rout of the tech stocks continued today. The Nasdaq is now down more than 30% from its March 10th high. In heavy trading Apple's stock got kicked down into the double digits.
The trade deficit grew to an all-time high of 30.18 billion, up 5.1% in March from $28.71 billion in February. The rapidly growing deficit shows US consumers aren't slowing consumption of imported goods despite the Fed's best effort to slow the economy. Much of that gain was due to a record high in the cost of foreign oil imports.
However, the Wall Street Journal reported, "US exports, which have been lagging because of the lingering effects of the global financial crisis, showed a sharp rebound, rising by 2.9% to $87.3 billion in March, the highest level on record. The advance was powered by big gains in sales of autos and auto parts, computer chips, telecommunications equipment and industrial machinery."
Apple fell like a rock in the first half hour of the day and never came back to end down 6 3/4 or 6.70% at 94 dollars on volume of 6.6 million shares.
AAPL fell as low $93.37 which is a strong plateau of support from back in November through January. In fact, today was the best buying opportunity in AAPL since January 12th, 1999. However, the double average trading volume in AAPL suggests that investor sentiment has shifted for Apple and weakness in the stock could continue through the summer.
The Nasdaq dived 148 points (-4.19%) to closed at 3390 on light volume of 1.3 billion shares. It was a deep and broad decline effecting all tech sectors.
The Dow fell 150 points (-1.40%) to close at 10626 on very low volume of 853 million shares.
The S&P 500 dropped 30.26 points (-2.11%) to close at 1406.95.
The Mac Observer Stock Watch Virtual Portfolio tanked with Apple. We took the opportunity to buy 50 more shares of AAPL.
In Apple related businesses: Akamai lost 3 5/8 to close at 71 15/16. ARM Holdings lost 1 3/16 to close at 27 13/16. Adobe traded down 5 7/16 to close at 109 9/16. Earthlink fell 2 3/4 to close at 17 dollars. Motorola dumped 4 1/16 to close at 89 15/16 dollars. IBM beat the trend to gain 9/16 to 106 5/8.
Apple's competitors: Hewlett Packard lost 5 1/2 to close at 126 3/16. Gateway dipped a dollar to close at 49 1/4. Compaq fell 1/2 to close at 27 1/2.
The German government said it will consider tossing Microsoft's Outlook in favor of a less virus prone e-mail alternative. This news comes on the heels of yet another virus specialized to take advantage of Outlook's VisualBasic loopholes in security. Shares of Microsoft dropped 1 1/8 to 65 1/16.
Intel lost 6 1/16 to close at 117 7/8 after the company announced that it dropped a penny from its fiscal 1st quarter earnings per share and lowered sales by $28 million due to the defective motherboards the company sold.
The bellwether 30-year US Treasury bond fell 10/32 to 100 8/32. The yield, which moves inversely to the price, climbed to 6.23%.
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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