This Story Posted:
July 20th, 1999

 
 

[3:54 PM]
Apple Stock Watch: Apple Drops As Market Takes A Hit
The stock market took a hit today as investors, long buoyed by hype and expectations, grew leery of IBM's and HP's long term prospects. Following higher than expected earnings announcements yesterday from IBM, some investors today still grew worried and the entire market, including Apple, suffered the consequences. According to a Reuters' report:

The selloff came as Blue chips for the most part reported expectation-topping results but questions emerged about whether the companies could continue to meet the higher hopes of investors.

International Business Machines Corp. tumbled 7-5/16 to 127-7/16 [at the time of this Reuters' report], the sharpest decline in the blue chip Dow, a day after its earnings edged above analysts' estimate.

Several brokerages raised their earnings estimates on IBM but in doing so cautioned that the shares, which surged in the first half of the year, could pause in the coming months.

"We have run up the market in anticipation," said Larry Rice, chief investment officer at Josephthal & Co. "Usually, when the news comes out people sell."

Apple closed at 52 7/8, a loss of 1 9/16 or 2.87%. Volume was slightly below average with 3,923,900 shares trading hands.

Apple's major PC competitors all took hits today that were higher than Apple's in terms of both dollars and percentages. IBM, Dell, Gateway 2000, Compaq, and Hewlett-Packard all closed lower.

The Dow and the Nasdaq also showed heavy losses with the Dow closing at 10996.45, a loss of 191.23 while the Nasdaq closed at 2732.18, down 98.11.

The Mac Observer: Our Spin is that MACWORLD Mania actually helped buoy Apple in the face of these market-wide losses with Apple falling less than all the PC Big Boys. Not a usual event.

Hopefully, Steve Jobs' keynote address will help put Apple back in positive territory tomorrow.

Apple