Apple Stock Watch - Apple Hangs On To Most Of Last Week's Gains In The Face Of Dell Warning

by , 6:30 PM EST, January 22nd, 2001

Apple dipped precipitously in the first hour of trading as an earnings warning from Dell sent hardware stocks reeling. However, by the end of the first hour, AAPL, DELL, and even GTW had recovered most of those losses and flirted with breaking even throughout the day. By the time all was said and done, Apple reported a quarter point loss, keeping almost all the gains from last week's three point rise.

On Friday, Dell Computer was upgraded by CS First Boston and ABN AMRO on Friday from a Hold to a Buy (in both cases). This morning, the stock received an upgrade from Robertson Stephens from a Market Performer to a Long Term Attractive. Then the company announced that earnings for the current quarter would suffer as the company aggressively targeted increased market share. That translates into lower prices and increased promotions to those of you keeping score at home. According to an AP report:

"Six months ago, the same news would have sent Dell down 25 to 30 percent, but its stock is already down," said John Forelli, portfolio manager at Independence Investment Associates. "I think investors are starting to feel like the bad news is factored into stocks."

That's the general trend in technology right now, almost all the bad news is already built into current stock prices.

Apple dropped a quarter point in today's trading, which means that our favorite computer maker stood tall in the face of adversity. AAPL closed at 19 1/4, a loss of 1/4 (-1.28%) on average volume of 9,273,700 shares trading hands.

The Nasdaq closed lower at 2757.91, lower by 12.47 (-0.45%).

The Dow was affected by tech losses and mixed results in the financial sector. The Dow closed at 10578.24, a slight loss of 9.35 (-0.09%).

The S&P 500 bucked today's downward trend by posting a tiny gain. The S&P 500 closed at 1342.90, a gain of +0.36 (+0.03%).

Akamai announced an expanded role with msnbc.com to provide delivery of streaming content for the Web site. That was enough to send the stock lower and Akamai closed at 28 1/2, a loss of 1 1/2 (-5.00%) on volume of 3,177,800 shares trading hands. Apple is a major shareholder of Akamai.

Adobe seems to have benefitted from a rave review of Macromedia by Red Herring as a stock that has been unfairly punished for being smart business operators. Macromedia performed well today as a result, and so did Adobe. Adobe closed at 59 15/16, a gain of 1 11/16 (+2.90%) on volume of 5,273,600 shares trading hands.

IBM saw some profit taking after posting strong gains after last week's earnings report. IBM closed lower at 108 9/16, a loss of 2 11/16 (-2.42%) on volume of 9,618,500 shares trading hands.

Motorola was downgraded on Friday by Josephthal & Co. from a Buy to a Hold. The stock joined the negative column in today's trading to close at 23 1/2, a loss of 1 3/16 (-4.81%) on light volume of 12,676,200 shares trading hands.

Earthlink closed at 8 13/16, a gain of 5/32 (+1.81%) on volume of 701,000 shares trading hands.

Gateway suffered the most of the hardware stocks we follow to close at 21.45, a loss of 2.24 (-9.46%) on volume of 3,087,500 shares trading hands.

Dell the cause of today's nervousness, performed the best of the hardware stocks we follow. Dell closed at 25 1/2, a slight loss of 1/8 (-0.49%) on strong volume of 73,964,496 shares trading hands.

Hewlett Packard closed 34 1/2, lower by 1 1/4 (-3.50%) on volume of 5,971,900 shares trading hands.

Intel closed at 33 3/8, down 3/16 (-0.56%) on volume of 45,756,600 shares trading hands.

Microsoft announced a massive US$200 million ad campaign for Windows 2000. The company closed at 60 1/8, off by 7/8 (1.43%) on light volume of 38,336,500shares trading hands.

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 updated Apple Stock Watch Special Report.

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