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Apple Commercial I Will Follow You

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Apple Inc. shares took a pounding for a second straight day Wednesday, with investors and some industry analysts expressing disappointment with Apple's latest announcements at the annual Macworld Expo.

Apple's AAPL, +1.70% stock ended the day down by $9.40 a share, or 5.6%, to close at $159.64, adding to the previous session's losses in which the stock gave up more than 5%.

Part of the reason for the decline was attributed to concerns about Intel Corp.'s INTC, -0.32% disappointing outlook, as Apple exclusively uses Intel processors in its line of Macintosh PCs. See full story.

At Macworld on Tuesday, Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs tried to reach back to hoopla of last year's show, in which he debuted the iPhone, saying that Apple has sold 4 million of the smart phones in six months. However, topping the iPhone unveiling put Apple and Jobs in an unwinnable position, according to Mike Abramsky of RBC Capital Markets.

"Investors were underwhelmed, possibly on unrealistic iPhone speculation and the lack of a killer product similar to the iPhone launch," Abramsky said. "But [it was] mostly general market pressure." Abramsky has an outperform rating and $215 price target on Apple's stock.

The major announcements from Apple included two items that would have normally been seen as a boon to the company -- a new MacBook Air laptop that is less than an inch thick, and a deal with the 12 major movie studios that will let Apple rent movies through its iTunes store.

However, Kevin Hunt of Thomas Weisel Partners wrote in a research note that while the new iTunes rental service is compelling, similar video on-demand services have failed to gain much market traction, and the service faces stiff competition from current VOD offerings from cable-TV and satellite providers.

"The current VOD model really isn't broken," said Hunt. "So it's difficult to see why someone would go through the extra steps required to download a movie through iTunes when the current process is actually easier."

As part of its attempt to claim a piece of the video-rental market, Apple unveiled a new version of its Apple TV set-top box that, when connected to a digital television, allows for direct access and renting of movies from iTunes. Apple also cut the price of Apple TV to $229 from $299.

Even though Apple TV has been on the market for less than a year, Hunt called it "a soon to be obsolete device" because TV makers are beginning to incorporate similar types of wireless technology into televisions within the next year.

Hunt holds a market-weight rating and $188 target on Apple's stock.

At Bernstein Research, analyst Toni Sacconaghi said that the product announcements were largely as expected, "if not modestly below expectations," and called the MacBook Air release one of the highlights of Jobs' speech.

But he commented that despite the uniqueness of the MacBook Air -- the laptop has a 13.3-inch screen and a full keyboard, measures just 0.76 inches at its thickest point and doesn't include an optical drive -- he believes the new notebook won't do much for expanding the market for the Macintosh.

Sacconaghi also said that with the MacBook Air compromising such hardware items as the optical drive and only having one USB port, he sees the laptop as "competing primarily with other Mac notebooks" and will be targeted at consumers. Because of this, the analyst believes the MacBook Air won't extend Apple's offerings into new market segments.

Sacconaghi has a market perform rating and $165 price target on Apple's stock.

Apple Commercial I Will Follow You

Source: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/apple-takes-more-hits-following-macworld-announcements

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