That snap you heard today was the stock markets snapping a three day losing streak. Sales of new homes were up 4%, while sales of existing homes were up 4.8% in March, both strong indications that not all is doom and gloom in the economy. According to a Reuters article:
"If youire looking for argument that the consumer isnit falling out of bed, just look at housing sales, which have done extraordinarily well," said Ed Cimilluca, who helps oversee $250 million for ING Furman Selz. "We might not be in the recession that all the Wall Street talking heads believe we are in."
Walt Disney also kicked in by turning in better than expected results after yesterdayis closing bell. Wall Street took to both of these events as a good sign, and sent stocks up accordingly.
IBM showed that someone in the company is brain-dead. Big Blue actually paid someone to spray paint public sidewalks with Linux symbols, hearts, and peace signs in what Reuters characterized as a "guerilla marketing campaign." Better yet, a similar plan was halted in San Francisco last week. At what point did some IBM exec wake up and think to him or herself that they had the right to spray paint public sidewalks? In their own defense, IBM claimed that the sidewalk vandalism was supposed to have been done with chalk, instead of spray paint. Thatis a lousy defense, guys. This was a phenomenally bad move on their part.
Editorializing aside, tech stocks performed well. The Nasdaq was up more than 2% and the Dow added 1.6% to its own value. Volume for the major indexes was on the moderately light side.
Of the stocks we track in the Apple Stock Watch, only Earthlink and Intel closed lower. Symantec, a stock we donit as yet track, turned in its 10th consecutive record quarter on revenues of US$250.6 million. The company released its results after the closing bell. For fiscal 2001, which ended in March, the company turned in US$944 million in revenue. Symantec is the maker of the Norton series of diagnostic and repair utilities for the Mac and PC, including Norton Disk Doctor for the Mac. You can check out their full results in the companyis press release. Symantecis results should bolster the momentum in the tech sector.
Apple opened up strong and traded in a fairly narrow range throughout the morning. At 11:45 AM EST, the stock started dropping, and fell some 40 cents in a few minutes at noon. The stock rebounded in the afternoon session, and closed just off the dayis highs. Apple tacked on 2.8%, but traded in light volume. The dayis range was 23.57 - 24.86.
Apple closed at 24.72, up 0.69 (+2.87%), on light volume of 5,903,300 shares trading hands.
The Nasdaq closed at 2059.80, up 43.19 (+2.14%), on volume of 1,978,538,000 shares trading hands.
The Dow closed at 10625.20, up 170.86 (+1.63%), on volume of 1,177,461,000 shares trading hands.
The S&P 500 closed at 1228.75, up 19.28 (+1.59%).
Akamai continued their PR blitz yet again today, and announced a new content delivery bandwidth deal with Signiant. AKAM closed at 7.97, down 1.27 (-13.74%), on strong volume of 4,922,700 shares trading hands. Apple is a large shareholder of Akamai.
Adobe has had some insider selling following the recent rise in the companyis stock. During April, John Warnock, the companyis Chariman, proposed the sale of 34,000 shares of ADBE, and former Apple exec and Borland head honcho Del Yokam proposed the sale of some 20,000 shares of stock. ADBE closed at 44.67, up 1.94 (+4.54%), on light volume of 2,720,800 shares trading hands.
IBM closed at 114.85, up 2.18 (+1.93%), on light volume of 6,810,700 shares trading hands.
Motorola was awarded a US$213 million contract the Chinese totalitarian government today. The contract is a cell phone deal for the Hunan Branch of China Mobile Communications Corporation. MOT closed at 15.00, up 0.15 (+1.01%), on volume of 12,657,400 shares trading hands.
Earthlink announced it had cut some 900 jobs related to its merger with OneMain.com. The company achieved the job cuts through attrition. Kudos to Earthlink. ELNK closed at 11.25, down 0.30 (-2.60%), on very light volume of 898,600 shares trading hands.
Gateway closed at 18.25, up 0.24 (+1.33%), on volume of 3,173,700 shares trading hands.
Dell closed at 25.85, down 3.50 (-11.93%), on heavy volume of 57,283,000 shares trading hands.
Intel closed at 29.03, down 0.11 (-0.38%), on strong volume of 64,588,200 shares trading hands.
Microsoft closed at 69.69, up 2.14 (+3.17%), on light volume of 38,273,400 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. 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.