September 21st, 1999

[4:00 PM] Apple Stock Watch: Apple Tanks To Become An Even Better Buy

Apple's stock dropped like a hot Apple III with loose components today in a harsh trading session. The market was reacting to an earnings warning issued yesterday that warned G4 shortages would hurt Apple's 4th quarter results. Since that time, news from the financial networks has practically revolved around Apple. The surprising conclusion being that Apple is still a great buy.

Apple closed at 69 1/4, a heavy loss of 9 13/16 or a whopping 12.41%. Volume was out of this world with 29,972,900 shares trading hands, more than 7 times the normal volume. Yesterday, Apple's price fell a like amount in after hour trading, so today's trading merely confirmed those losses. Before the warning was issued, Apple had closed at an all time high.

The rest of the market also took a major hit today with the Dow and the Nasdaq posting heavy losses. The Dow closed at 10598.47, a loss of 225.43, while the Nasdaq closed at 2821.10, a loss of 65.05. The Dow recovered somewhat in last minute trading and had been as much as 279 points lower. Analysts are calling today's sell-off one of the biggest ever in terms of point value (though nowhere near in terms of percentages).

Motorola, Macromedia, Adobe, and Symantec all traded lower. PC related companies also tanked with IBM, Dell, Microsoft, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Compaq, and Gateway 2000 all ended the day in negative territory.

For full quotes for all the companies mentioned in this article, we have assembled this set of quotes at Yahoo! for your reference. We also have these same quotes reported live (20 minute delay) on our home page. For other stories regarding Apple's stock activity, visit our Apple Stock Watch Special Report.

The Mac Observer Spin: None of today's losses for Apple have anything to do with their fundamental business. The general consensus is that Apple is still a great buy, and in fact, is an even better buy now that they are almost 10 bucks cheaper. We think that Apple will resume its upward trek within the next few days.

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