December 1st 1999
For the first time in history Apple ends the trading session above the psychologically significant century mark, as some technology stocks staged a come back after yesterday's profit taking. After flirting all week with the $100 level Apple advanced strongly, soaring 5 3/16 or 5.30% to close at 103 1/16 on a volume of 5.5 million shares traded. The Dow moved ahead 120 points (1.11%) to close at 10998 on a volume of 874 million shares traded. Oil service stocks, HMOs, apparel makers and electronic firms led the way higher. The Nasdaq gained 17.55 points (0.53%) to end the session at 3353.71. Volume was, as usual, heavy at 1.4 billions shares traded. The Internet and the semiconductor sectors gained. Even after the Nasdaq's 2.5% sell-off yesterday, its largest one day retracement since October 15th, the Nasdaq was up 16% for November with 15 new record high closings for the month. Average volume of shares traded in November increased to 1.3 billion, up 25% from October, while NYSE volume declined slightly. The S&P 500 recovered 8.81 points today (0.63%) to close at 1397.72. This was helped, in part, by the addition of Yahoo! to the Index. Yahoo! rose 10 1/8 to close at 228 7/8. 30-year Treasury bond was down 4/32 to close at 97 21/32, the yield rose to 6.30% from 6.29% yesterday. Key to the bond market moving forward is the November employment numbers to be released on Friday. The National Association of Purchasing Management (NAPM) Index for November declined to 56.2. Analysts had forecast 58.0, while last month's NAPM came in at 56.6. This measure of US manufacturing strength indicates that the economy may not be overheating after all and caused a small rally in bonds which lost steam late in the day. It wasn't a good day for Apple related stocks. Gravity caught up with Akamai today, down 19 3/8 points to 217 5/8. While Adobe lost 2 1/8, after yesterday's 2 7/8 lost, to end 66 9/16. Macromedia got clobbered again, down 4 dollars after yesterday's trouncing of minus 3 5/8, to close at 61 3/4. Symantec lost 2 1/2 to close at 44 3/16. Apple's Power PC partners were both up , IBM gained 11/16 to close at 103 3/4, while Motorola gained a fraction to end at 116 15/16. Apple's competitors ended mixed. Gateway was down another 1 5/8, after losing 2 3/4 in yesterday's sell off, to close at 74 3/4. Microsoft continued to climb, up 2 9/64 to 93 3/16, on hopes of a settlement with the DOJ. Compaq, Dell and Hewlett Packard also ended in positive territory. But Intel lost 3/8 to close at 76 5/16. 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.
[4:15 PM] Apple Stock Watch: Apple Finally Does It, Closes Over 100 For The First Time
by Wes George