| Apple's stock fell 5.95% to close at 42 1/2, a drop of 2 11/16. Volume was below average with 3,728,000 shares trading hands.
Apple's competitors also saw declines as Compaq, Dell, IBM, and Gateway 2000 all closed down. Hewlett-Packard closed slightly up.
Concerns about chip makers reported disappointing results. According to CBS MarketWatch:
Semiconductor and hardware stocks were hit hard Thursday, pushed lower by Applied Materials and KLA-Tencor after North American-based chip equipment makers book-to-bill numbers fell for April
In a separate report from CBS MarketWatch:
Stocks turned lower in late trading today as lingering concerns about leading technology companies sapped the market's modest gains.
For several days, stocks have traded in a narrow band as investors struggled to determine whether a recent rise in inflation will prompt the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates in an effort to slow the runaway economy.
By late afternoon, traders had grown comfortable enough with U.S. economic policy to cast their eyes back toward corporate America. Dell Computer, which disappointed analysts earlier this week with a profit report that merely matched expectations, sank in late trading, depressing the Nasdaq and dragging many technology stocks with it.
Earlier today we reported that Apple's press conference with financial analysts might yield a significant boost to Apple's stock. This turned out not to be the case as the news Apple was expected to reveal did not come to light. The end result is a loss of almost 3 points to Apple's stock.
The Mac Observer Spin: As we said yesterday, we have seen movement in Apple's stock price that was probably related more to what Apple was doing than to general market movements. At least some of today's drop was related to non-Apple specific news however as is evidenced by the reports from CBS MarketWatch.
Still, the stock is still above 42. Not bad considering all the negative energy building up around tech stocks during the last 10 days or so.
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