WALL STREET - Tech Stocks, Ups and Downs

From video

 
"Tech Stock Ebb and Flow: Apple Dominates Wall Street While Facebook Flails" PBS Newshour 8/21/2012

Excerpt

JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour): And speaking of tech companies, we turn to a business story about rising to the top and staying there, as Apple reaches new heights and Facebook explores new lows.

Wall Street's closing bell yesterday rang in a new all-time high stock price for Apple. It closed trading at $665.15 per share. That eye-popping figure, thanks to all of those iPods, iPads and iPhones, made Apple the highest valued public company ever, at least in non-inflation-adjusted terms, worth $623.5 billion.

That's 50 percent more than ExxonMobil, the second largest company, nearly two-and-a-half times rival Microsoft, almost three times Google's value and six times that of Amazon. The stock dropped back into nearer-Earth orbit today, closing under $660 per share, as investors took profits.

Meanwhile, it's been a much different story for Facebook and other companies that are part of the social media boom. Just three months after the company's initial public offering had Wall Street salivating...