Analysts Mixed, AAPL Closes Lower

Data continues to pour in that indicate a slowing in the economy. Today we saw an increase in employment and lower levels of manufacturing output across the country. Manufacturing levels are at their lowest levels since March of 1991 when George Bush Sr. was president. In the past few weeks we have seen the markets reacting positively to news such as this as it gave credence to cuts in the Fed rates. Itis gotten to the point where folks are now more worried about how long it will take the economy to pick back up, and so many investors simply took profits. Still the Dow and the Nasdaq ended the day in positive territory.

Apple held their financial analyst meeting yesterday, a public event that was webcast by the company. There wasnit to much new information, but the press is still mining the meeting for more tidbits. What has come to our attention so far is that SuperDrives will make it to the iMac sometime next year, PowerBooks G4s are shipping, the company will be profitable this quarter, and Apple expected three times the demand for the Cube than they actually got. Overall, analysts have reported mixed opinions since the meeting, and most of them havenit actually changed their positions. Appleis stock traded lower throughout the day and ended the day in negative territory. For more information on the analyst meeting, you can refer to our live coverage or our analysis of the meeting.

Apple closed slightly lower 21 1/8, a loss of 1/2 (-2.31%) on light volume of 6,626,900 shares trading hands.

The Nasdaq closed up at 2782.79, a gain of 10.06 (+0.36%).

The Dow closed at 10983.63, a gain of 96.27 (+0.88%).

The S&P 500 completed the hat trick by closing at 1373.47, a gain of 7.46 (+0.54%).

Akamai has lost some five points in the last four days of trading. Today, the stock closed at 27 5/8, off by 1 7/16 (-4.95%) on volume of 2,705,300 shares trading hands. Apple is a major shareholder of Akamai.

Adobe regained some of yesterdayis losses to close at 45 7/16, a gain of 1 3/4 (+4.01%) on heavy volume of 11,819,200 18,743,900 shares trading hands.

IBM closed at 114.05, a gain of 2.05 (+1.83%) on volume of 5,581,300 shares trading hands.

Motorola shed 75 cents to close at 22.06, down 0.75 (-3.29%) on volume of 10,847,300 shares trading hands.

Earthlink closed at 8 1/32, a loss of 11/32 (-4.10%) on light volume of 925,800 shares trading hands.

Gateway traded down to close at 20.73, off by 0.51 (-2.40%) on light volume of 2,106,300 shares trading hands.

Dell also dropped to close at 25 15/16, a loss of 3/16 (-0.72%) on volume of 31,898,400 shares trading hands.

Hewlett Packard bucked the hardware trend to close up 1 penny higher than it started the day. HP closed at 36.86, a gain of 0.01 (+0.03%) on light volume of 4,229,000 shares trading hands.

Intel closed higher at 37 13/16, a gain of 13/16 (+2.20%) on strong volume of 50,299,300 shares trading hands.

Microsoft closed higher at 62 3/8, a gain of 1 5/16 (+2.15%) on volume of 35,898,400 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.