[4:00 PM] Apple Stock Watch: Split Markets on Wall Street, Apple Closes Down
by Wes George
On Wall Street there were too many cross currents to label any one trend as dominant. There is year end tax loss selling going on, portfolio shuffling, profit taking and just plain nervousness ahead of tomorrow's FOMC meeting. Volume should begin to taper off as the holiday week continues. Friday the stock markets are closed. Nevertheless, the tech rally did continue as investors pulled money out of the blue chips and under performing sectors to pump that cash into the usual high tech suspects pushing the Nasdaq to yet another record close.
Apple sagged 2 dollars to close at 98 on half the normal volume in what proved to be a tough day for the computer hardware stocks. The Dow plummeted 113 points (1.01%) to close at 11144 on volume of 902 million shares traded. The Dow turned south late in the morning after being up more than 50 points, the advance-decline line continues to trend negative. The Nasdaq gained 30 points (0.82%) to close at 3783 for the 55th record high of the year on 1.3 billion shares traded. The Nasdaq closed right at the high for the day. Chip equipment, telecommunication and Internet stocks were strong. The S&P 500 advanced 2.93 points (0.21%) to close at 1418.10. The bellwether 30-year Treasury bond was down 25/32 to close at 95 26/32, while the yield rose to 6.44% from 6.38% on Friday.
All eyes are on tomorrow's Federal Open-Market Committee (FOMC) meeting. The street consensus is that the Fed won't change a thing as we roll into Y2K, but watch out for next year. On Wednesday the 3rd quarter gross domestic product data is released. The consensus estimate is for a 5.5% growth rate, holding steady from the 2nd quarter. Most bond traders feel this will guarantee further tightening by the Fed in February.
In Apple related businesses, Adobe traded down 2 1/4 to close at 65 1/4. Akamai and ARM Holdings continued to trend higher. Macromedia gave back 1 5/16 to end at 78 11/16. Symantec soared 5 3/8 to end at 61. According to a company press release, Symantec appointed a new VP charged with," establishing a global professional services organization to help large companies identify and implement comprehensive security solutions for complex enterprise environments." Apple's Power PC partners, IBM and Motorola, went their separate ways. IBM lost 1 15/16 to close at 108 1/16. Motorola advanced 7 7/16 to end at 139.
Oracle said that it would split its stock on a two-for-one basis for shareholders of record on December 30. Oracle climbed 5 5/8 to close at 96 5/16. Oracle has split its stock 9 times since its initial public offering in 1986 and has 1.42 bilion shares outstanding. Apple's competitors were mixed, Dell was up 2 1/8 to close at 47 11/16 after JP Morgan upgraded Dell to a buy from a market perform. Gateway lost 5/8 to close at 73. Hewlett Packard was off 13/16 point to close at 104 1/4. Microsoft gave back 2 1/2 to close at 112 3/4 after soaring 22% last week.
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.
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