December 2nd 1999
Investors continued to move money from old guard industrial stocks into the new digital economy fueling a mammoth tech rally on the Nasdaq. Apple is emerging as a major market leader for this new paradigm. Apple traded higher by 7 1/8 (6.91%) to close at 110 3/16 on average volume. There has been a steady stream of good news lately about Apple, from the iBook snatching first place in the notebook market, to the iMac holding 5th place in the October desktop retail market, even though the new iMac DV models were not available for the full month. Today Apple announced that Power Mac G4s will ship with the new Rage 128 Pro graphics card dramatically boosting 3D graphics performance. Also, the 350 MHz G4s will be upgraded to the same architecture used in the 400 MHz and 450 MHz configurations. The Dow moved ahead 40.67 points (0.37%) to close at 11039 on a volume of 887 million shares traded. The market breath continued its weakness today, further evidence of investors fleeing non-technologically savvy businesses in favor of high growth tech stocks. The Nasdaq gained a remarkable 99.05 points (2.95%) to end the session at 3452.76. Volume was above average at 1.4 billion shares traded. Today's surge scored another record high, pushing the Nasdaq to a 57% year to date gain. The Internet stocks led the way higher, but every tech sector posted broad gains. In fact, so universal was the tech rally today, if you own a tech stock that could not rise on today's swelling tide, it may be time to cut your losses or take your profits. The S&P 500 rose 11.07 points today (0.79%) to close at 1408.79. 30-year Treasury bond rose 14/32 in quiet trading to close at 97 9/32, the yield rose to 6.32% from 6.30% yesterday. The Dollar ended higher against the major currencies pushing the Euro below parity with the dollar for the first time since its introduction, although the Euro did manage to come back slightly above parity by session's end. Key to the bond market moving forward are the November employment numbers to be released on Friday. If employment dips below 4.0% or wages increase dramatically, watch out below. In Apple related businesses there was nary a single down stock. Well, OK, Akamai suffered a bit of profit taking after being in the green all day, closing down 2 3/8 to 215 1/4. Adobe regained 2 1/16, after yesterday's 2 7/8 lost, to end 68 5/8. Macromedia got back 5 3/4 points after a two day trouncing of minus 7 5/8, to close at 67 1/2. Symantec soared an amazing 12.5 % or 5 9/16 point to close at 49 3/4, half of that gain came in the last hour of trading. Apple's Power PC partners were both up , IBM broke out of a short downtrend, up 2 1/8 to close at 105 3/4, while Motorola gained 1 5/8 to end at 118 9/16. Apple's competitors were winners today, except Gateway, down another 1 3/4, after selling off 4 3/8 in the last two days, to close at 73. Microsoft continues to bounce back , up 1 5/8 to 94 13/16. Intel, Compaq, Dell and Hewlett Packard also ended in positive territory. 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: Technology is the Name of the Game, Apple Soars To Another All-Time High
by Wes George