Appleis stock reached as high as US$87.97 during Tuesdayis trading, before settling at $87.84 as of 12:23 PM EST. $87.97 is a new 52-week high for the shares. At that time, it was up $1.37, or 1.58%, for the day, following a strong recent upward trend since it closed at $78.29 on Nov. 3.
MarketWatchis Rex Crum attributed Tuesdayis surge to the report issued by American Technology Research analyst Shaw Wu on Monday. In it, Mr. Wu said that Apple has a second iTunes cell phone with messaging capabilities in development. In addition, he noted strong sales of the new red iPod nano, which could make his estimate of 14 million units sold this quarter a conservative one. Last year, Apple exceeded all analystsi expectations by selling over 14 million iPods during the final quarter.