Apple's Busy Week: Tech Weekly
NEW YORK (
) -
Apple
(AAPL) - Get Report
. Apple. Apple. Another week has gone by, and Apple once again packed the news agenda.
The Cupertino, Calif.-based company made a variety of headlines this week, ranging from CEO Tim Cook keynoting an investment bank conference to the release of a new operating system, and the tech giant passing $500 per share for the first time.
CEO
sat down with Goldman Sachs analyst Bill Shope earlier this week at a technology conference in San Francisco, and discussed a wide array of topics, ranging from supply chain issues to the company's cash hoard. He also seemed to hint at new products.
Cook said
Apple is taking very seriously
concerns that have been raised about labor practices in its supply chain.
"The first thing that I want everyone to know - Apple takes working conditions very, very seriously," explained the Apple chief. "We care about every worker."
Cook also touched on the company's cash hoard, approaching $100 billion as of the end of the fiscal first quarter. He seemed to hint that something is in the works, saying Apple has "more cash than we need to run the business on a daily basis." The CEO, however, stopped short of announcing a dividend or buyback, asking that shareholders be patient on this issue.
Cook also talked about the Apple TV set-top box amidst mounting speculation that
the company will announce a television set
later this year.
"For those of us that use it, we have always thought that there's something there and if we keep following our intuition and pull that string, it could be larger," he said, referring to the existing Apple TV. "We need something that could go more main market."
Apple announced its
, dubbed Mountain Lion, this week. The software will have a variety of new features incorporating parts of the company's mobile operating system, iOS, into the OS for Mac computers.
Apple dropped the name Mac from its operating system, potentially paving the way for OS X Mountain Lion and iOS to become one in the same. Mountain Lion will get features such as Message, Contacts, Notes, Game Center, and offer integration with
and Apple's iCloud service.
Apple shares crossed a milestone this week,
for the first time as investor optimism continues to increase. The iPhone maker was also named the top American brand in a reputation study.
Apple shares closed the week up 1.7%, gaining $8.70 to close at $502.12.
Hedge funds and institutional investors released their holdings this week, and a slew of them added or subtracted stakes in some of the more notable tech stocks.
of Greenlight Capital made some heavy bets on tech stocks during the fourth quarter, initiating positions in
Yahoo!
(YHOO)
,
Research In Motion
(RIMM)
, and
Dell
(DELL) - Get Report
. Einhorn also raised his stake in Apple and chip-maker
Marvell Technology
(MRVL) - Get Report
.
Netflix
(NFLX) - Get Report
was one tech stock that saw
heavy institutional buying and selling
during the fourth quarter.
Hedge funds like
Renaissance Technologies
,
SAC Capital
, and
JAT Captial Management
reduced their positions, while
Jana Partners
and
Adage Capital Partners
added shares.
Netflix shares lost 1.7%, or $2.08, during the week to close at $121.85.
Yahoo! saw
heavy buying action during the fourth quarter
, while the Internet company attempted to turn itself round and come up with a plan for its Asian assets.
Shares of Yahoo! dropped sharply during the week, as investors did not react favorably to an article that the
company has reportedly scrapped the sale of its Asian assets.
Yahoo! fell 34 cents, or 2.25%, to close the week at $15.01.
Some of
also added to their stakes in
(GOOG) - Get Report
during the fourth quarter.
Google shares ended the week down 0.2% to $604.64.
Earnings from companies like
Rackspace
(RAX)
,
Nvidia
(NVDA) - Get Report
, and
Zynga
(ZNGA) - Get Report
were in the spotlight this week.
Cloud-computing company Rackspace reported revenue of $283 million, a rise of 32% year-over-year, and earnings of 18 cents per share. Wall Street analysts polled by
Thomson Reuters
expected the company to report $281.02 million in revenue, and 15 cents per share.
Shares of Rackspace gained 9.1% or $4.42 to close the week at $52.93.
Nvidia
reported better- than-expected earnings
but the company issued weak first quarter-guidance, as GPU sales are still constrained.
Nvidia earned 26 cents per share on revenue of $953 million during the fourth quarter. Analysts polled by
Thomson Reuters
had been expecting earnings of 19 cents per share and sales of $950.5 million. For the first quarter, Nvidia expects revenue between $900 million and $930 million, well below the $945 million analysts had been anticipating.
Nvidia shares lost 0.3% of their value for the week, closing down 4 cents to $15.85.
Zynga, the social network gaming company, reported better than expected earnings, but shares fell sharply after the company said it expects to see slower growth in the first half of 2012.
The maker of
FarmVille
reported earnings of 5 cents per share on $307 million in revenue, a 26% increase year-over-year. Analysts polled by
Thomson Reuters
were expecting earnings of 3 cents per share on revenue of $302 million for the period. The company said its monthly active users increased to 23% to 240 million during the quarter.
Zynga expects revenue for full-year 2012 in the range of $1.35 billion to $1.45 billion.
Zynga shares fell 3%, or 40 cents, during the week to close at $12.93.
Earnings season rumbles on next week with
HP
(HPQ) - Get Report
,
Dell
(DELL) - Get Report
and
Sourcefire
(FIRE)
on deck to report quarterly results. Apple also holds its annual shareholders meeting on Thursday.
Interested in more on Zynga? See TheStreet Ratings' report card for
this stock
.
Check out our new tech blog,
Tech Trends
.
--
Written by Chris Ciaccia in New York
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