October 21st, 1999
IBM renewed Y2K fears yesterday by announcing that they expect server, minicomputer and main frame sales will stagnate this quarter as corporate IT officers go into an upgrade freeze in preparation for Y2K. Apple with less than 1% of their sales in high end enterprise servers is largely immune to this type of hit on earnings. IBM ended the day down $16 to close at $91. The Dow end down 94.67 or 0.90% to close at 10297.69, however that was a 120 points higher than its 10177 low for the day. The Nasdaq came back off a low of 2724 to close up 12.99 or 0.51% at 2801.12 in a late day rally. Apple was up $1 to close at $76 1/8, a gain of 1.33%. Apple related stocks Macromedia, Adobe, and Symantec all end down. Apple's PowerPC partners, IBM and Motorola ended the day mixed, with Motorola closing higher and IBM closing lower. Apple's rivals Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, and Dell ended the day lower. Gateway beat the trend up about 20% on news of alliance with America Online to market and distribute each other's products. Intel and Microsoft joined Gateway in the winner's circle. Silicon Graphics (SGI) was down on yet another disappointing earnings announcement. The 30-year Treasury bond dropped up 9/32 while the yield was up to 6.36% from 6.33% late Wednesday. 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.
[3:45 PM] The Apple Stock Watch: Wall Street is confused, but Apple ends up $1
by Wes George