[4:30 PM] Apple Stock Watch: Apple Follows Tech Stocks Up
by Wes George
Stocks moved grudging higher today as investors searched for leadership with a cautious eye on the economy, ever wary of the of Federal Reserve's ability to derail the markets with an interest rate hike later this month. Apple is trending higher once again.
Tomorrow is triple witching expiration day which sometimes leads to volatility. Triple witching days occur on the third Friday in March, June, September and December when options, index options and futures contracts all expire simultaneously often instigating large institutional trades.
Industrial production, the measure of output at factories, utilities and mines, rose 0.4% in May, down from the 0.7% pace in April, but still stronger than the negative 0.3% that was forecast by economists.
The Wall Street Journal reported, "The data suggest that the factory sector has yet to feel the full effects of the Fed's interest-rate increases over the last year. But much of the advance was due to higher output by utilities, which are notoriously subject to weather vagaries. Utilities production jumped 1.4% in May following a 2.6% surge in April."
Apple rose 1 15/16 or 2.14% to close at 92 3/8 on volume of 2.2 million shares.
The Nasdaq climbed 48 points (1.27%) to closed at 3845 on volume of 1.3 billion shares. The Nasdaq has been trending sideways in the narrowest, least volatile trading range since last June. Interestingly, last year's summer rally break out didn't kick in till June 18th after weeks of trading flat.
The Dow climbed 26 points (10714%) to close at 10714 on light volume of 993 million shares. An earnings warning from Wachovia (WB) killed the banking stocks in the morning but many bounced back by the close.
The S&P 500 rose 8.10 points (0.55%) to close at 1478.64.
The Mac Observer Stock Watch Virtual Portfolio was up today on a good performance from Lucent, IBM and Apple.
In Apple related businesses: Akamai fell 2 11/16 to close at 91 1/4. ARM Holdings lost 1 3/8 to close at 30 1/4. Adobe traded up 2 7/8 to 124 3/4. Adobe announces their second quarter earnings this afternoon and they are expected to beat estimates handily. Earthlink fell 1/4 to 16 9/16. IBM climbed 13/16 to 116 13/16.
Motorola climbed 1 5/8 to 34 3/1 after the company announced it's joining with Symbol Technologies Inc. and two others to invest $500 million in a new joint venture to develop a convergence of cellular phones and scanners for use in e-commerce.
According to the Wall Street Journal:
"The companies hope to spur the creation of technology that allows consumers with cell phones and other handheld devices to scan bar codes found in print ads or on products and gain instant access to a corresponding Web site. The effort builds on technology developed by another partner in the venture, AirClic Inc. of West Conshohocken, Pa., that is being promoted as an open platform to enable other hardware and software makers to develop products. The fourth partner is the Swedish company Connect Things Inc., a Stockholm-based affiliate of cell-phone giant Telefon AB L.M. Ericsson."
Apple's competitors: Hewlett Packard bounced 2 9/16 to close at 116 9/16. Compaq gained 2 bucks to close at 27 11/16. Shares of Microsoft were up by 1 7/8 to close at 72 3/8. Intel climbed 1 13/16 to close at 128 1/4. Gateway close up 3 9/16 at 54 13/16. Dell climbed 3/4 to 46 15/16.
Gateway said that 40% of its profits could come from "beyond the box" services such as Internet services and consumer software by the end of fiscal 2000. A Reuters article reported these "services are important to building lifelong relationships with the customer. Gateway lifetime customers generate $6,000 in revenues for the company, while one-time customers generate only $1,845 by buying a PC." Dell also has a similar strategy of diversifying it's revenue stream into services.
Sounds like Dell and Gateway long for the type of customer loyalty that only Apple has been successful in generating.
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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