AAPL Gains 5% as S&P Maintains Strong Buy on Shuffle

Investors appeared to enjoy Apple's announcement Wednesday of a new iPod shuffle that can speak the names of songs -- Standard & Poors liked it so much, the firm issued a note iterating its "Strong Buy" rating on AAPL . Shares in the stock traded higher during the Wednesday afternoon session, at US$93.85 per share, a gain of $5.2225 (+5.89%).

S&P said in its note, "We believe that its size will garner increasing interest and sales, and that the higher price point ($79) and smaller form factor balance potentially higher memory cost. Although we still see average selling prices for the iPods falling overall, we see the new Shuffle preventing a steeper drop."

Shares in AAPL were slightly off the highs for the day, but the company is maintaining a second day of rallying following Tuesday's strong gain. All three major indexes were also in positive territory, with tech stocks showing mixed results.

*In the interest of full disclosure, the author holds a small share in AAPL stock that was not an influence in the creation of this article.