November 10th 1999

[4:10 PM] The Apple Stock Watch: The Dow Wilts, Records for Nasdaq and Apple Moves Forward to 91 7/16.
by Wes George

Technology stocks soared again today pushing the fearless Nasdaq into new record high territory. The Nasdaq is up an absurd 44% year to date. Meanwhile on the NYSE investors are worried over the increasing odds that next week will bring an interest rate hike from the Federal Reserve's policy meeting.

The Nasdaq rose 30.74 (0.98%) to close at 3155.78 on a volume of 1.4 billion shares traded, the 3rd highest volume in history. Cisco Systems and the semiconductor stocks are the latest suspects to lead the Nasdaq to yet another all time high.

The Dow wilted 19.58 (0.18%) to 10597.74 on a volume of 970 million shares. It was a poor day for the financial stocks. Declining issues have been leading advancers all week.

The S&P 500 moved up 8.18 (0.60%) to close at 1373.46

October's Producer Price Index decline 0.1% overall with a rise of 0.3% in the core rate. Both numbers can be used to predict the rate of inflation and could effect the Fed's decision next week. The Federal Reserve will meet next week to decide on whether to raise interest rates. An announcement is expected on November 16th. On Friday, the 3rd quarter productivity numbers come out and the stock market hopes they will show increased use of technology is keeping inflation at bay.

Apple moved ahead 1 13/16 (2.02%) to ended the session at 91 7/16 on normal volume. After two days of extreme volatility AAPL seems to be back to its underlying trend line. Apple too has risen 40% during the last month.

In other stocks, it was a big day for Cisco Systems (CSCO), up 5 1/4 to 79 1/2 after 1st quarter per-share profits beat the street by a penny prompting upgrades.

Compaq released a new computer today called the iPaq in a silent nod to Apple's new found leadership in the field of PC design . Like the iMac, the iPaq has no "legacy" ports and sports a zippy plastic shell. Unlike the iMac, the iPaq is a monitorless desktop box aimed at the enterprise market. Compaq pops 1 1/16 to close at 21 13/16.

Gateway also has an all-in-one computer ready to go retail next week. Gateway advanced 4 1/16 to 76 1/16 today, an all-time high.

Dell is expected to post 3rd quarter earnings tomorrow, analyst expect 0.18 per share, revised down from 0.20 based on increased DRAM prices. Dell rose 7/8 to end at 41 7/16.

IBM had a good day up 3 5/16 to close at 96 15/16 on the news that IBM has invented a new high resolution flat panel that has 50% more pixels than current high-resolution monitors.

The Microsoft effect continued today, MFST was down 1 3/4 to close at 87 1/8 and Intel was down 1 1/16 to 79. Both Be Inc. (BEOS) and Red Hat (RHAT) also retreated from yesterday's highs.

Apple related stocks were mixed Pixar, Adobe, Akamai, and Motorola all posted gains, while Macromedia, Arm Holdings and Symantec were down.

The 30-year Treasury bond dropped 4/32 to close at 100 17/32 and the yield rose to 6.08% from yesterday's 6.07%.

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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