Goldman Sachs Comments Help Send Apple Higher

Retail sales information for May was released today, and Aprilis numbers were revised upward. May sales rose by o.1%, hardly an increase at all, while Aprilis numbers were raised from a gain of 1.1% to a 1.4% growth rate. The news kept investors in a downer mode, helping to send all three major indexes lower.

"The beat of the music on Wall Street is one step forward and two backward," said Peter Cardillo, director of research at Westfalia Investments. "We continue to be stuck in a trading range ... thatis typical of a market that is mired with an uncertain outlook."

"People sense recovery is down the road, but there is a lot of uncertainty as to just how long that road really is," said Alan Ackerman, chief market strategist at Fahnestock & Co. "Consequently, money is building on the sidelines. There is not any rush to buy equities at the present time with corporate earnings reports as dicey as they appear to be."

Volume was light again today as the Nasdaq traded 1.5 billion shares and the Dow traded 1 billion shares.

In a seeming vote of no-confidence for his company, Dellis CEO Michael Dell has filed to sell 10 million shares of his stock in the company with an anticipated net of US$250 million. Wall Street reacted negatively to this news and sent the stock down by 91 cents. By contrast, Goldman Sachs said today that it saw Apple outperforming its PC brethren this year and looked to see a 25-20% gain for the company in six months. In addition to our coverage of Goldman Sachis comments, On24 has an audio report. Appleis stock rose 16 cents in strong volume.

In another blow to Microsoftis reputation in the area of security, something the company is facing increasing scrutiny over because of .Net and HailStorm, the company acknowledged that a security fix for Exchange Server didnit fix the problem it was supposed to fix. From a News.com report:

"Yesterday, we discovered that the updated version contained outdated files which, as a result, did not fix the issues for which it was designed," a Microsoft representative said Wednesday. "We are incredibly sorry and apologize for any inconvenience."

Microsoft also made the Monopoly Index at Forbes, an index of companies with near monopoly power. Microsoftis shares shed US$1.39 in light volume today.

This is for the Interesting Files, but a company called Octavo, owned by Adobeis cofounder John Warnock, has been selected to take digital photos of the Gutenberg Bible that is owned by the Library of Congress. The ultra-high resolution (by todayis standards) images will be used to make digital reproductions of the book. Thatis pretty cool in our opinion.

TheStandard.com has a story on the nature of advertising that includes a mention of Appleis 1984 ad campaign. Itis an interesting read.

Apple stock opened up about US$1.20 higher today and traded in that range throughout the morning. Once lunchtime hit, AAPL started trending lower, dipping into negative territory in the last hour of trading, but pulling out a gain of 16 cents before all was said and done. The stock traded in strong volume with the dayis range being 20.06 - 21.73.

Apple closed at 20.47, a gain of 0.16 (+0.79%), on strong volume of 9,133,900 shares trading hands.

The Nasdaq closed at 2121.66, a loss of 48.29 (-2.23%), on volume of 1,547,653,000 shares trading hands.

The Dow closed at 10871.62, a loss of 76.76 (-0.70%), on volume of 1,060,726,000 shares trading hands.

The S&P 500 closed at 1241.60, down 14.25 (-1.14%).

Adobe was hit by comments from CS First Boston about weakening European demand. ADBE closed at 40.18, down a buck (-2.43%), on light volume of 3,371,900 shares trading hands.

Akamaiis board, directors, trustees and whatnot continue to unload shares in the company according to First Call. AKAM closed at 8.53, a loss of 0.62 (-6.78%), on very light volume of 1,385,800 shares trading hands. Apple is a large shareholder of Akamai.

Earthlink closed at 14.09, a loss of 7 cents (-0.49%), on light volume of 1,993,000 shares trading hands.

IBM and SAP announced an alliance today that focuses on the enterprise market. IBM at 116.54, a loss of 0.71 (-0.61%), on light volume of 5,703,200 shares trading hands.

Macromedia closed at 22.70, down 1.05 (-4.42%), on very light volume of 443,200 shares trading hands.

Motorola closed at 14.88, up 0.92 (+6.59%), on light volume of 10,405,400 shares trading hands.

Dell closed at 25.19, a loss of 0.91 (-3.49%), on light volume of 25,551,300 shares trading hands.

Gateway closed at 16.25, down 20 cents (-1.22%), on very light volume of 966,900 shares trading hands.

Intel closed at 29.06, a loss of 1.07 (-3.55%), on light volume of 41,041,800 shares trading hands.

Microsoft closed at 70.69, down 1.39 (-1.93%), on light volume of 27,667,800 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. You can also check out our Apple Financial Boards, a new moderated forum for Apple Investors and people who are interested in Appleis financial dealings.