Ciscois stock closed below its $60 support level at $58 7/8 per share on twice normal volume. Wall Street has been watching Ciscois stock as a proxy for the Nasdaq, todayis break down bodes ill for the broader tech stocks according to conventional wisdom.
Robert McTeer, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas said that, "once we get over the energy hump, I wouldnit be surprised if inflation declines and interest rates are going to come down." The Wall Street Journal commented, "Mr. McTeeris remarks suggest that, aside from support inside the central bank for ending the recent rate-raising campaign, there is even some talk of moving to ease monetary policy. Some economists have suggested that the next Fed move would be an easing but that it wouldnit happen for several months or even well into next year."
An Individualinvestor.com article suggests that computer hardware stocks may be on easy street for the rest of the year. Predictions are for a strong Christmas season and spring for the PC manufacturers. "Now that the Y2K has come and gone and the world is still standing, corporate clients are ready to resume buying PCs in large numbers. The weak corporate IT spending in the first half of 2000 could also give PC makers easy year-over-year comparisons when they get into the first half of 2001.
Apple sank 11/16 to close at 57 3/4 on volume of 3.3 million shares. AAPL rallied to $60 a share by midday, but couldnit hold the gain as the Nasdaq switched to broad sell-off mode.
Apple Expo 2000 begins tomorrow morning in Paris with Steve Jobsi Keynote Address. Jobs is expected to cut loose the long anticipated Mac OS X beta in tomorrowis keynote. ABC News is hailing OS Xis beta as "the biggest Apple release in over a decade and a half."
The latest issue of Vanity Fair, which hit newsstands today, ranks Steve Jobs #6 in its "New Establishment 2000" list of Information Age movers and shakers. Steve Case, CEO of AOL, edged out Bill Gates for the number one slot this year.
The Nasdaq fell 46 points (-1.20%) to close near the dayis low at 3849 on volume of 1.5 billion shares. The Nasdaq has turned negative six out of the last seven trading days and since Labor Day the index is down 8.8%. Telecom equipment and the semiconductor stocks were particularly weak today.
The Dow climbed 37 points (0.34%) to close at 11233.23 on volume of 981 million shares. J. P. Morgan (JPM) led the way higher for the Dow and just as the market closed rumors emerged on CNBC that Chase Manhattan may be pitching a take over plan to the nationis most famous bank.
The S&P 500 dropped 7.27 points (-0.49%) to close at 1481.99.
In Apple related businesses: Akamai shed a dollar to 61 11/16. Adobe fell 4 7/16 to 122 13/16. Earthlink lost 1/8 to 11 3/8. Motorola fell 1 3/16 to 32 3/16.
IBM climbed 1/2 to 125 dollars. SG Cowen came to the defense of IBM this morning, saying weak European currencies will effect revenues, but hedging and a stronger yen should help IBM maintain their earnings-per-share expectations. SG Cowen raised their price target on IBM to $160-165 by 2002.
Appleis competitors: Dell lost 7/8 to 37 7/16. Gateway was higher by 0.10 to 63.01. Compaq gave back 5/8 to 231 1/2. Intel gained 1/4 to 64 15/16.
Hewlett-Packard unveiled a new mainframe UNIX server the size of a refrigerator designed to support dot-coms, ISPs and other data-intensive businesses. HPis stock lost 1 7/16 to 112 9/16.
Microsoft announced that it has taken legal actions against six computer resellers across the state of California who allegedly distributed counterfeit copies of Microsoftis software. Shares of Microsoft slipped 11/16 to 68 1/8.
In economic news: Look for Augustis Producer Price Index on Thursday and the Consumer Price Index on Friday, along with industrial production and capacity utilization data.
The Mac Observer Stock Watch Virtual Portfolio. Lucent (LU) fell 2 1/2 to 36 3/8, a new 52-week low in the weak telecom sector, its second in as many days.
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 Apple Stock Watch Special Report.