Shares in Apple Inc. ended the day higher on Wednesday, ending a five-day losing streak. The stock closed at US$640.91, a gain of $5.06 (+0.80 percent), on moderate volume of 18.1 million shares trading hands.
AAPL Chart for October 10th, 2012
Source: Yahoo! Finance
It's unclear what popped the stock—counting today's gain, AAPL has dropped some 8.7 percent in the last 15 trading sessions from it's all-time closing high of $702.10 on September 19th.
One possibility is that iPad mini mania is starting to assert itself. Apple is expected to unveil a 7.x-inch iPad this month, though at least one rumor had Apple sending out invitations starting Wednesday. As of this writing, that hasn't been the case.
It's also possible that the markets simply overly corrected and more buyers saw the recent drop as a good buying opportunity than sellers see otherwise.
Whatever the case, all three major indices closed lower: the DOW was off 0.95 percent; the NASDAQ was off 0.43 percent; and the S&P 500 was down 0.63 percent.
*In the interest of full disclosure, the author holds a tiny, almost insignificant share in AAPL stock that was not an influence in the creation of this article.