Apple Hits a High, but Fails to Convince Big Investors

Shares of AppleAAPL hit a one-year high in intraday trading Monday, propelled by enthusiastic chatter about a new powered-up chip for its high-end computers -- announced at a conference Monday -- and a promising venture into the online music business. But though Mac lovers may see reason to applaud, heavy hitters in the fund world aren't exactly jumping out of their seats.

That's true even though the stock is up 38% from April 28, the day it announced an online music store that could boost sales of computers and iPods, its line of portable music players. After hitting a 52-week high on Monday, shares later retreated amid broad-based tech selling, ebbing 14 cents, or 0.7%, to $19.06.

At a developer's conference, Apple touted upcoming new desktop computers as "the world's fastest." The boxes will contain the new PowerPC G5 chip manufactured by IBM, which can process twice as many bits of data at a time compared to existing desktop processors. Apple also previewed the new version of its desktop operating system, "Panther," which will be available by the end of this year. Yet fund managers seem unmoved by speculation about Apple's pending product rollouts.

"Apple clearly has great customer loyalty. But they just can't compete with MicrosoftMSFT and IntelINTC," says one fund manager who asked to remain anonymous, calling Apple "a classic example" of a company on the losing end of long-term competitive pressure. "It's been a value stock for a long time. I think we made the decision a long time back on sticking with winners," says the manager.

Analyst John Park, who covers the stock for Independence Investments, says buysiders are likely to stay on the sidelines until Apple can show progress on profitability and market share.

On both fronts, Apple is facing headwinds. To be sure, the computer maker managed to turn a slim first-quarter profit -- $14 million on $1.48 billion in sales -- after two back-to-back quarterly losses.