David Bailey, a research analyst at Gerard Klauer Mattison told CBS MarketWatch, "Appleis extremely well positioned heading into the second half of the year. The back-to-school and holiday shopping season are their strongest periods of the year. Theyire very well positioned and hopefully people are starting to realize it."
See todayis Apple Trader column, "All Aboard the AAPL Express" for a closer look at Appleis ongoing rally.
Interestingly, the Nasdaq, Dow, S&P 500 and many tech stocks including Apple and IBM are poised to challenge resistance or old highs in what is shaping up as perhaps the most critical week of this summeris rally.
Appleis stock moved higher by 1 1/4 or 2.20% to close at $58 1/16 on above average volume of 6.3 million shares, about 2 million shares more than usual, trading hands. AAPL shot higher out of the gate this morning as if investors, having thought about Appleis future over the weekend, were anxious to take a position in the stock. Volume tapered off later in the day, but the stock managed to hold on to much of the morningis gain.
The Nasdaq climbed 27 points (0.69%) to close at 4070 on volume of 1.3 billion shares. Although August has seen the lowest volume of the year, the index has rallied 8.6% this month thanks largely to the semiconductor and biotech stocks.
The Dow rallied 60 points (0.54%) to close at 11252 on volume of 688 million shares. The Dow is up 7% or 731 points during August.
The S&P 500 was up 7.64 points (0.51%) to close at 1514.09, only 12 points from an all time high!
In Apple related businesses: Motorola lost 1/2 to 35 1/2. Akamai lost 3 1/16 to 67 dollars. Earthlink gained 3/16 to 10 1/16.
Adobe announced plans with Barnes&Noble.com to offer PDF-based eBooks for sale. Adobe climbed 1 1/2 to 130 3/8.
IBM jumped 1 9/16 to 130 9/16, thatis within range of the companyis all time high of 138 1/2 set in July 1999. Credit Suisse First Boston analyst Amit Chopra reiterated his ibuyi rating on the stock, and raised IBMis 12-month price target to $150 from $125.
Appleis competitors: Compaq gained 1/2 to 34 3/8. A CNET News article reported that, "Compaq Computer in July reclaimed the lead in retail PC sales from rival Hewlett-Packard but sacrificed profits to regain its crown." Kevin Knox, a Gartner analyst, said in the same article, "Compaqis larger problem is that it is focused too much on market share and hardware sales and not enough on true profitability and intangibles such as service and training." Hewlett Packard climbed 2 1/4 to 121 dollars.
Kevin Knox also said, "Gateway is an extremely interesting contrast [to Compaq]. On the consumer side, 40 percent of the revenue is coming from non-PC-related sales. So theyire selling a ton of (Internet service provider) services and support options, a ton of stuff thatis not even hardware. Thatis a pretty impressive number, and thatis where youire going to make a ton of money. Thatis where the margin is going to be."
Gateway is one of the first stocks to start trading in decimals as the NYSE begins to implement plans to shift to the decimal system later in the year. Gateway gained 0.36 to 66.55.
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) began shipping 1.1 GHZ Athlon processors today, Compaq, Gateway, HP and IBM are among the early adopters of the high-end chip. AMD lost 1/4 to 34 1/4.
Meanwhile, IBM and Dell have stopped shipping or taking orders for computers with the Pentium III 1.13 GHz chip for as yet unreleased reasons. Later, CNBC reported that Intel is recalling some 1.13 GHz chips because of "glitches" when run at certain temperatures with certain applications. Intel gained 15/16 to 73 7/8.
In economic news: Consumer spending climbed 0.6% in July, only slightly faster than expected by economists, but thatis still twice as fast personal incomes grew for the month.
The Wall Street Journal noted, "With growth in spending outpacing income growth, consumers made up the difference by tapping into savings or by borrowing. The personal savings rate, which is savings as a percentage of after-tax income, fell to minus 0.2% in July, the lowest monthly rate since the Commerce Department began collecting data on savings. It was the first time the savings rate has been in negative territory since February. In June the rate stood at 0.1%."
The Mac Observer Stock Watch Virtual Portfolio continues to climb higher on the backs of AAPL and IBM.
For full quotes on all the companies mentioned in this article, we have assembled this set of quotes at Yahoo! for your reference. For other stories regarding Appleis stock activity, visit our Apple Stock Watch Special Report.