Apple Stock Watch: - Apple Reports Earnings of $0.45 per share!

by , 4:45 PM EDT, July 18th, 2000

CNBC just reported Apple announced earnings of $0.45 per share better than the forecast of $0.44 per share! Apple reported $1.83 bilion in revenues up from l $1.6 billion.

Check back for a full report on Apple's conference call with Fred Anderson later this evening.

The consumer price index (CPI), a measure of inflation at the retail level, rose a greater-than-expected 0.6% in June after a 0.1% hike last month, helped along by the strongest rise in energy prices in 14 months. Consumer prices were up 3.7% year over year in June which, according to the Wall Street Journal, matched a nine-year high reached in March.

Sentiment on the Street now places the odds on another interest rate hike by the FOMC in August at 50%. On Thursday, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan will speak before the Senate Banking Committee on monetary policy.

John Bollinger of equitytrader.com pointed out on CNBC that this quarter's earnings reports are trending 3 to 1 better-than-estimated and that the NYSE advance/decline line (the ratio of advancing stocks to declining ones) has bottomed out and is heading into a broad rally which bodes well for next quarter's earnings period as well as higher stock prices.

Apple lost a 1 1/16 to close at 57 1/4 on volume of 5.2 million shares. AAPL sold off more than a dollar in the last five minutes of trading. The trend for stocks announcing earnings has been to sell-off even when they beat expectations.

An interesting article from Reuters' points out that Apple may yet to have earned the respect of many investors even while delivering positive earning surprises for the past ten quarters in a row.

" 'Investors do not appreciate the superior financial dynamics at Apple and do not accord it the valuation it deserves because -- in our mind -- Apple is still viewed by many as a reformed alcoholic -- just one step away from the gutter,' Bear Stearns analyst Andrew Neff wrote in a recent research report."

The Nasdaq fell 97 points (-2.29%) to closed at 4176 on volume of 1.4 billion shares. Only the Biotech stocks, already the best performing sector in the markets, climbed higher today help by a couple of cool IPOs.

The Dow fell 64 points (-0.60%) to close at 10739 on light volume of 909 million shares.

The S&P 500 dropped 16.75 points (-1.11%) to close at 1493.74.

In Apple related businesses: Akamai slid 2 11/16 to 122 dollars. Adobe skidded down by 4 1/16 to 131 dollars. Earthlink fell 3/4 to 16 9/16. Motorola dumped 7/16 to 37 11/16. IBM shed a 2 5/16 to 103 3/16.

Apple's competitors: Hewlett Packard lost 3 11/16 to close at 131 1/8. Gateway was off by 1 13/16 to close at 63 1/4. Compaq gained 17/32 to close at 28 5/16.

Shares of Microsoft climbed 5/16 to 78 1/2 and then announced earnings of $0.44 besting estimates of $0.42 after the bell.

Intel fell 3 5/16 to 143 dollars. The semiconductor giant reported earnings of $0.50 a share, post split, beating estimates by a penny.

For full quotes on all the companies mentioned in this article, we have assembled this set of quotes at Yahoo! for your reference. For other stories regarding Apple's stock activity, visit our Apple Stock Watch Special Report.

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