| Apple Turns In Banner Day Amid Lackluster Results On Wall Street |
| Aug-20-2012 |
| Keywords: apple, central bank, europe, china, fed minutes, coventry, aetna |
Investors take a breather from the six-week rally on Wall Street, while Apple reigns supreme.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 3.6 points, while both the Nasdaq Composite and S&P 500 finished the session fractionally lower.
Trading was light on the day, with roughly 2.8 billion shares trading hands on the New York Stock Exchange.
With no major economic reports out today, investors focused on central banks for a good part of the day. German newspaper Der Spiegel reported over the weekend that the European Central Bank is planning on targeting sovereign bond spreads in a plan that could potentially put a cap on how much a country's borrowing cost could rise as compared to the German bund. However, Germany's Finance Ministry said today that it is unaware of any such plan.
"In purely theoretical, abstract terms, such an instrument would certainly be very problematic. But I know of no proposal along these lines," a spokesperson for the Ministry said, according to a report by Reuters.
In Asia, a publication run by the People's Bank of China said the central bank has no plans to cut banks' required reserve ratios, sometimes used as a tool to boost the banking system.
Hewlett-Packard helped to minimize losses on the blue chip index. HP's stock finished up nearly 3%, which Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase each finished with 1% gains.
But the big news on the day emerged out of the technology sector. The shares of Apple continued on their meteoric rise, gaining 2.63% on the day to close at an all-time high of more than $665 a share. That equates to a more than $622 billion market cap, unseating Microsoft, which for the past 12 ½ years reigned supreme as the largest company ever traded.
Merger and Acquisition news sparked significant gains in the healthcare sector. Aetna's stock up 5% on news it's extending its reach into the government managed health care plans Medicare and Medicaid, buying Coventry Health Care for $5.7 billion. Coventry shares surged more than 20% on news of the buyout. |
|
|
Posted by Lou Dobbs Staff at 6:00 PM Email to a friend |
| < Back to Today's Issues |
|
 |
|
|
|
