Thursday 24 April 2014

Apple shares reach 2014 highs, Asian stocks lag

Shares in tech heavyweights Apple and Facebook held hefty after-hours gains on Thursday as their results handily outpaced Wall Street expectations, though Asian markets managed only a mumbled cheer on the news.
South Korea's Samsung Electronics did gain 0.6 per cent but the main KOSPI index dipped a fraction. Markets were mixed across the region with Japan's Nikkei off 0.6 per cent but Singapore up 0.5 per cent.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan edged ahead by 0.1 per cent.
The outlook for the US market was brighter, however, with Nasdaq futures up 1.1 per cent and the S&P 500 E-mini adding 0.3 per cent.
Those gains came after Apple decided to buy back $30 billion of its shares through the end of 2015 and authorised a seven-for-one stock split.
Its shares jumped almost 8 per cent to $566.50 in after-hours trade, the highest since December and adding roughly $35 billion to its market worth.
Apple reported sales of 43.7 million iPhones in the quarter ended March, far outpacing forecasts. That drove a 4.6 per cent rise in revenue to $45.6 billion, a record for any non-holiday quarter.
The iPhone maker's strong performance did not translate into Asia as much as it usually does, with mixed trading seen among big tech players in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.
Facebook Inc shares also boasted a 3.7 per cent jump after hours as the Internet social networking company topped Wall Street's financial targets.
The Nasdaq had ended on Wednesday 0.83 per cent lower, while the Dow eased 0.08 per cent and the S&P 500 lost 0.22 per cent.

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