To absolutely no oneis surprise, the Fed lowered interest rates by 50 basis points, or a half point. Throughout the morning, there was continued maniacal cries from the fringe elements on Wall Street that we might even have gotten a 75 basis points decrease, but it was not to be. True to fashion, once the rate cut was announced, a mild sell-off began in the tech sector. Buy on the rumor, sell on the news is the mantra for traders. For more information on how this often happens in the markets, read yesterdayis Stock Watch. The Nasdaq dropped more than 60 points while the Dow was the recipient of much of that money and posted a mild gain.
Adobe posted a significant loss in todayis trading after warning of slower sales in the US during the current quarter. Almost all of the stocks we track in the Apple Stock Watch posted losses as well.
Apple was actually trading higher throughout the day, but the stock fell victim to some of the sell-off fever and posted a small lost in the last minutes of trading. The company is holding their semi-annual analyst meeting today, an event that will be webcast. We will be covering the event as it happens.
Apple closed slightly lower at 21 5/8, a loss of 1/8 (-0.57%) on strong volume of 12,919,300 shares trading hands.
The Nasdaq closed virtually unchanged at 2838.35, a gain of a penny (0.00%).
The Dow closed at 10887.36, up 6.16 (+0.06%).
The S&P 500 joined the Nasdaq and closed lower at 1365.87, off by 7.86 (-0.57%).
Akamai shed some of its recent gains to close at 29 1/16, a loss of 1 5/8 (-5.30%) on volume of 3,251,600 shares trading hands. Apple is a major shareholder of Akamai.
Adobe issued an earnings warning on the idea that a slowdown in the economy could impact their sales after the bell yesterday. The stock dropped more than 17% to close at 43 11/16, a loss of 9 1/16 (-17.18%) on heavy volume of 18,743,900 shares trading hands.
IBM closed at 112.45, down 4.16 (-3.57%) on volume of 7,247,700 shares trading hands.
Motorola closed slightly lower at 22.89, a loss of 0.12 (-0.52%)on volume of 11,875,300 shares trading hands.
Earthlink closed at 8 3/8, down 1/16 (-0.74%) on heavy volume of 3,449,100 shares trading hands.
Gateway is trading well on news that founder Ted Waitt has returned as the companyis CEO. The stock traded higher at 21.36, a gain of 0.38 (+1.81%) on volume of 4,538,000 shares trading hands.
Dell closed at 26 1/8, a drop of 2 -7 (11%) on light volume of 32,466,600 shares trading hands.
Hewlett Packard also closed lower at 36.69, down 1.11 (-2.94%) on volume of 4,845,800 shares trading hands.
Intel went nowhere fast on heavy volume to close unchanged at 37 on volume of 70,228,304 shares trading hands.
Microsoft closed at 61 1/16, down 2 5/16 (-3.65%) on volume of 39,300,300 shares trading hands.
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 updated Apple Stock Watch Special Report.