Apple stock unmoved, despite new Apple Watch details
During of the big event Monday to discuss the upcoming Apple Watch, the company's investors largely left the stock unmoved. Shares barely budged more than 1 percent up or down from their opening price of $126 per share, even following the event's conclusion. So far, however, the Apple Watch has done Apple well. Shares have risen nearly 30 percent since the device was first announced in September, nearly half of that growth happening since the beginning of this year. Investor reaction is always an interesting sideshow to Apple events. In the past, investors have often sold in reaction to the news, either responding to concerns about a product's ability to perform in the market, or merely raking in profits during the typical lead up period to an event. This is an unusual moment for the company. The Apple Watch represents the first new product since the death of the company's co-founder Steve Jobs, who ushered to market industry-changing products such as the Macintosh computer, the iPod music player, the iPhone and the iPad. Now Apple will need to prove it can develop ground-breaking new products without Jobs at the helm. Aside from the Apple Watch, the company has had a busy couple of months. It sold a record number of iPhones over the holidays, and beat the world record in corporate profits while doing it. The company is also going to be added to the Dow Jones Industrial Average on March 19, replacing AT&T as a key representative of the technology industry in the survey. At $742 billion, Apple is already the world's most highly valued company. The oil behemoth Exxon, the world's second-most valued company, comes in at less than half at $360 billion.