Apple Stock Watch - Good News Abounds For Apple, But AAPL Closes Lower

by , 6:40 PM EST, March 30th, 2001

Window Dressing gave the markets a boost today, especially in the big caps and blue chips that are usually n the buying side of Window Dressing. Window Dressing is the investment fund practice of buying positions in top, solid stocks in order to impress current and potential members of the fund's stability. Today was the last day of the quarter. From a CBS Marketwatch report:

"It's the last day of the market quarter. There will be window dressing," said Barry Hyman, chief investment strategist at Weatherly Securities. "You add to your winners and detract from the losers. The end of the quarter will usually give you some mark-up in your stronger stocks."

Speaking of quarters, the Nasdaq dropped 25.5% of its value this quarter, while the Dow shed 8.4% of its own value. Ouch. During the same period, Apple rose 51.46%. Not too shabby.

There is still a lot of debate on whether or not we have found a bottom, and that has kept investors from rushing in and picking up all the bargains littering Wall Street. From a Reuters report:

"There is not much you can do until that ugly bear retreats," said Peter Cardillo, director of research for brokerage Westfalia Investments, as investors looked forward to closing the chapter on the last three months. "Until then, he's there ready to charge on any type of news."

So where does that take the stocks we track? Tech stocks closed mixed today. Surprisingly, the larger companies that we track are the ones that closed lower, including Apple, Motorola, Compaq, Dell, Intel, and Microsoft. The biggest of them all, IBM, bucked that trend and tacked on 1.14% to its own value.

Apple got some very good coverage from the mainstream press today. C|Net and CNBC both touted Apple's outstanding PowerBook G4 sales, with the CNBC report in particular being very enthusiastic in its portrayal of Apple. C|Net also covered the release of an AOL AIM client for Mac OS X. The interesting aspect of that coverage was that the suggestions was that the X AIM client was *already* out, and not that it was one of the few native X apps on the market. Long suffering Mac fans will recognize that as a surprise. All this good coverage didn't actually move Apple's stock higher today, however.

Apple opened up just north of yesterday's close, but quickly took a nose dive into the deep end. The stock traded lower by a point for most of the morning, but staged a rally in early afternoon trading. AAPL peaked in positive territory, but ended up giving back some of those gains and closed 46 cents off. The stock traded in moderately light volume in a range of 21.34 - 22.72.

Apple closed at 22.07, off by 0.46 (-2.04%), on moderately light volume of 7,148,500 shares trading hands.

The Nasdaq closed at 1840.26, a gain of 19.69 (+1.08%), on volume of 2,143,217,000 shares trading hands.

The Dow closed at 9878.78, a gain of 79.72 (+0.81%), on volume of 1,280,891,000 shares trading hands.

The S&P 500 made it a hat trick and closed at 1160.33, up 12.38 (+1.08%).

Akamai continues its own mini-rally and closed at 8 9/16, up 5/16 (+3.79%), on light volume of 1,625,400 shares trading hands. Apple is a large shareholder of Akamai.

Adobe saw coverage initiated by Dain Rauscher Wessels at a Buy Aggressive, a very high rating. ADBE closed at 34.97, a gain of 2.40 (+7.37%), on volume of 5,419,900 shares trading hands.

IBM closed higher at 96.18, a gain of 1.14 (+1.20%), on volume of 9,461,300 shares trading hands.

Motorola closed lower at 14.26, down 0.26 (-1.79%), on light volume of 10,148,600 shares trading hands.

Earthlink closed at 12 1/8, up 7/16 (+3.74%), on volume of 2,352,100 shares trading hands.

Gateway closed at 16.81, a gain of a penny (+0.06%), on light volume of 1,790,300 shares trading hands.

Dell closed at 25 11/16, off by 1 1/4 (-4.64%), on volume of 36,614,100 shares trading hands.

Intel closed at 26 5/16, down 1/4 (-0.94%), on light volume of 47,296,900 shares trading hands.

Microsoft closed at 54 11/16, a loss of 11/16 (-1.24%), on strong volume of 45,600,100 shares 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. You can also check out our Apple Financial Boards, a new moderated forum for Apple Investors and people who are interested in Apple's financial dealings.

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