MACWORLD Knocks Apple's Stock Up...Less Than A Point

Apple? Did they do something today? Oh yeah, there was that MACWORLD thing. The Mac community might have been highly focused on Apple today, but not so the bulk of Wall Street. Steve Jobsi wowed crowds with new PowerMac G4s and the new PowerBook G4, while the stock moved up less than a point. The stock churned through higher than normal volume, which likely contained some profit taking from those who bought Apple at itis low. The rest of the tech sector enjoyed moderate gains while financials and industrials kept the Dow in the red.

Wall Streetis moderately positive reception is somewhat surprising considering Steve Jobs was largely addressing Wall Street when discussing his companyis future. At the same time Apple has been enjoying favorable press concerning the keynote, including increased mainstream coverage, also a factor that can influence a stock price. A sample from CBS Marketwatch:

Elsewhere, Apple Computeris Steve Jobs turned in a hat trick at the MACWORLD show when he unveiled a faster line of PowerMac PCs, finalized a launch date for the companyis OS X software and introduced the latest Mac notebook PC. See full story.

"We donit think the PC is dying at all . . . we think itis evolving," Jobs told the capacity crowd.

Apple ended up the day at 17 3/16, a gain of 5/8 (+3.77%) on higher than normal volume of 10,516,600 shares trading hands.

The Nasdaq closed at 2441.30, up 45.38 (+1.89%).

The Dow closed in the red at 10572.55, down 48.80 (-0.46%).

The S&P 500 shared the Nasdaqis success and closed on the up side at 1300.80, higher by 4.94 (+0.38%).

Akamai closed more than 10% higher at 20 9/16, a gain of 1 15/16 (+10.40%) on light volume of 2,544,700 shares trading hands.

Adobe started to see increased press coverage concerning their recent product announcements. The stock closed at 17 3/16, up 5/8 (+3.77%) on volume of 10,516,600 shares trading hands.

IBM released a study that predicts slower growth in the PC industry in the next few years. The companyis stock traded down, closing at 92 9/16, a loss of 1 (-1.07%) on light volume of 7,522,100 shares trading hands.

Motorola officially announced the new G4 processors that are going into Appleis new machines. Nokia reported poor earnings, and that helped to drag the stock down. Motorola closed at 20 11/16, down 1 1/16 (-4.89%) on volume of 16,963,800 shares trading hands.

Earthlink closed at 7 1/16, a strong gain of 31/32 (+15.90%) on volume of 1,925,000 shares trading hands.

Gateway bucked todayis positive trend and closed slightly down at 18.87, a loss of 0.04 (-0.21%) on normal volume of 1,966,700 shares trading hands.

Dell closed at 19 3/4, up by 5/8 (+3.27%) on volume of 32,306,300 shares trading hands.

Hewlett Packard announced a new printer for the Mac market today. The stock closed at 31 9/16, higher by 3/16 (+0.60%) on volume of 6,322,000 shares trading hands.

Intel finally threw off the shackles thrust upon them for being chip makers and posted the first gain in the last several trading sessions. The stock closed at 32 1/4, up by 5/16 (+0.98%) on light volume of 40,814,400 shares treading hands.

Microsoft was one of todayis bigger gainers. The company will be holding a mini-keynote presentation at MACWORLD tomorrow. The company closed at 51 13/16, higher by 2 7/8 (+5.87%) on volume of 57,482,700 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.