Next week is MACWORLD in New York City. Itis also time for Apple to reveal how its business is coming along on Tuesday, July 18th, after the market closes. "As for earnings, analysts are expecting Apple to come in at 44 cents a share for its third fiscal quarter, according to First Call/Thomson Financial. Thatis an increase of 26 percent over earnings of 35 cents per share the same period a year ago. Revenue estimates have been hovering around $1.9 billion." reports CNET News.
For the most complete and reliable run down on what to expect from Appleis earnings announcement visit Eric Yangis appleinvestors.com.
In other market news: Jurors in a landmark Florida trial slapped the five major US tobacco firms with $145 billion in punitive damages this afternoon. Philip Morris got the worse of it, hit with $73 billion in damages. The lawyers for the tobacco company laughed off the award claiming the punitive damages are well beyond the capacity of the industry to bear. Philip Morrisis lawyer boldly claimed, "todayis verdict is truly a verdict for no one."
In economic news: Productivity rose 0.2% in June, slowing from the revised 0.5% in May, while retail sales soared a greater-than-expected 0.5% after a 0.3% gain in May, gasoline demand excluded.
Wholesale prices leaped higher in June as the producer-price index, a measure of inflation at the wholesale level, climbed a greater-than-forecast 0.6% in June.
Apple bounced after yesterdayis poor showing by 1 3/16 to close at 57 11/16 on less than average volume of 3.3 million shares.
The Nasdaq rallied another 71 points (1.71%) to closed at 4246 on volume of 1.6 billion shares. Nasdaq is up 39% from the lows of May and up 4.3% year-to-date.
The Dow climbed 24 points (0.22%) to close at 10812 on volume of 951 million shares.
The S&P 500 climbed 14.14 points (0.95%) to close at 1509.98.
In Apple related businesses: Akamai shed 1 1/16 to 126 dollars. Adobe lost 1 11/16 to 136 3/16. Earthlink soared 1 3/4 to 15 13/16 after they announced they wonit install an FBI surveillance computer to their network. Motorola was up only a 1/16 to 39 3/8 after announcing yesterday they wonit disappoint Wall Street with poor earnings. IBM shed a 1/16 to 103 15/16.
Appleis competitors: Hewlett Packard lost 1 1/16 to close at 133 13/16. Gateway lost 4 1/8 to close at 66 3/8 partly on fears of news that MACWORLD might bring. Compaq climbed 7/16 to close at 27 5/8. Shares of Microsoft were off by a dollar to 78 15/16. Intel climbed 3 1/2 to 146 11/16 for a new 52-week high.
The Mac Observer Stock Watch Virtual Portfolio did well today as Lucentis and Appleis gains out weight Akamai and IBMis losses.
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.