Wall Street tried to continue Fridayis rally, but exhausted itself by the early afternoon. After AAPLis brutal sell-off late last week the stock bounced back on high volume. Market volatility is expected to increase this week as portfolio managers attempt to adjust their positions before the end of the quarter on Friday.
Investors hoped that Clintonis tapping of the strategic oil reserve and the intervention by western nations to support the euro would help the stock market by eliminating fears about energy and the eurois stability. Oil price did fall sharply, but the euro gave back all of Fridayis gains.
Cisco System, a closely watched indicator of tech stock health on the Nasdaq, continued fall below what is considered the technically important $60 support level. CSCO fell 3 1/8 to 57 3/16.
Part of todayis weakness is perhaps due to the danger of hostilities breaking out in Serbia if incumbent President Slodan Milosevic refuses to accept the results of yesterdayis presidential election which appears to have gone in favor of opposition candidate Vojislav Kostunica.
Apple began the day higher by 3 dollars, but the weakness in the Nasdaq eroded those gains to 1 5/16 (2.52%) at 53 1/4 on volume of 7.7 million shares.
The Nasdaq fell 62.50 points (-1.64%), after climbing 65 points in the morning, to close at 3741 on high volume of 1.76 billion shares. Nasdaq is down over 9% this month, which makes this the worst September for the Nasdaq in a decade. Today it was the Nasdaq 100, the big cap technology stocks like Yahoo!, Cisco, Microsoft and Oracle which held back the index.
The Dow fell 39 points (0.36%) to close at 10808 on volume of 982 million shares.
The NYSE continued to roll-out its decimalization program by announcing another 52 stocks will begin to trade in decimals including America Online (AOL), Compaq (CPQ), Goodyear Tire (GT) and DaimlerChrysler AG (DCX). The NYSE kicked off the decimalization pilot program with six stocks including Gateway (GTW) in August.
The S&P 500 dropped 9.69 points (-0.67%) to close at 1439.03.
In Apple related businesses: Akamai lost 1/8 to 56 1/8. The content streaming leader received a nod of approve as Pacific Crest started coverage on AKAM with a "buy" rating.
Adobe is holding on to its recent run up in price nicely, even after giving back 1 15/16 to 147 5/8 today. Which ever way content delivery evolves from here, Adobe is positioned to benefit enormously.
Earthlink climbed 1/16 to 10 7/16. Motorola lost 1 1/16 to 31 5/16.
IBM fell 2 1/8 to 121 3/4. The company said, " it will be the main supplier of advanced chips and components to the main builder (Huawei Technologies Co.) of Chinais Internet system." CG Cowen said, "terms were not disclose, but IBM expects Huawei will increase network processing revenues by 10% by 2002."
Appleis competitors: Dell dipped 1 5/8 to 34 5/16, after announcing an updated Inspiron notebook PC with five "snap-on accent" colors, "that fit on the back of the LCD display and on the palm rest" in a lame attempt at fashion consciousness.
Palm doubled earnings expectations of $0.02 per share by reporting $0.04 per share or $23.9 million. Palm shipped 1.5 million devices in the quarter, while revenues increased to $401 million from $176 a year ago. Palm climbed 7/16 to close at 52 1/4.
Gateway was higher by 1.22 to 56.72. Compaq gave back 0.18 to 28.44.
Shares of Microsoft dived 2 dollars to 61 1/4. A C/Net article commented, " The Supreme Court could decide as early as tomorrow whether to take the Microsoft antitrust case directly from a lower court rather than allow it to proceed through the normal appellate process. The longer it takes to make that decision, legal experts say, the more likely the high court is to take the case directly. The issue of jurisdiction is seen as pivotal in the caseis outcome."
Intel fell 2 9/16 to 45 3/8. PC makers were quick to point out that Intelis earnings warning last week was due to the chipmakeris "misreading of the market." According to the Wall Street Journal, PC makers Compaq, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Gateway all claimed their sales to be on track with industry expectations. PC analysts are holding to earlier forecasts of about 17% growth in unit sales this year, down from last yearis rebate-fueled 22% increase in unit sales.
In economic news: Existing single family home sales posted their best gains in 14 months climbing 9.3% in August spurred higher by lower interest rates.
According to the Wall Street Journal, "In the last two weeks of August, the average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage fell below the 8% mark. For the month, 30-year rates averaged 8.03%, down from 8.15% in July. Still, Augustis rate was considerably higher than the 7.94% average rate in August 1999."
The Mac Observer Stock Watch Virtual Portfolio Lucent is down 25% this month. Rumors were spread that CEO Richard McGinn is about to resign and the stock hit yet another new 52-week low, down 1 11/16 to close at 30 3/4. Lucent said the rumors are baseless.
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.