Santa comes early in Cupertino?
Maybe it was the reported surge in iPod sales over the long Thanksgiving Day holiday weekend. Or maybe it was the optimistic comments today from analysts who had seen those same reports. Whatever the reason, Apple Computer's stock hit an intraday high of $71.07 a share today, before settling back to just above $69, according to this MarketWatch story.
That's a far cry from six months ago, when a lot of Mac fans were worried that Apple's plans to move to Intel processors would chill hardware sales for the rest of the year and well into 2006. Now, that very same move is being cited as one reason Apple's stock is expected to do well for the foreseeable future. In fact, some analysts are saying it could go to $78 or $79 a share. And who knows what post-holiday goodies CEO Steve Jobs will unwrap for the faithful at MacWorld San Francisco in January.
As for those iPod sales, apparently many of Apple's retail partners sold out of their allotments of by Friday morning. And that includes not just the diminuitive nanos, but the newer and more expensive video-playing models (see Apple's iPod nano a holiday hit). Apple is expected to sell between 9 million and 11 million of the popular devices this quarter.
In other words, you might not want to wait until the last minute to pick up an iPod if it's on your gift list this year.
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