Why Apple Watch Fails to Invigorate Shares

By Paul Ausick Updated Apr 28, 10:13AM EDT · Published Mar 9, 3:09PM EDT

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Monday was launch day for the Apple Watch from Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), but the company also had a few other products to show off.

First out of the chute was an announcement by Apple CEO Tim Cook that Apple TV has struck a deal with Time Warner Inc.’s (NYSE: TWX) HBO that brings HBO Now, the network’s new streaming service, to Apple TV as a standalone streaming service, available for the first time without a pay-TV subscription.

Apple also dropped the price of Apple TV from $99 to $69 to celebrate selling 25 million units of the media device. After a free first month, HBO Now will cost $14.99 a month.

The company brought out a new version of its MacBook portable that has been completely redesigned and sports some specifications that are better than MacBook Air’s. The new laptop is barely half-an-inch thick and includes a 12-inch Retina display for a base price of $1,299. The top price for the new laptop will be $1,599, and it will ship on April 10.

The big reveal for the Apple Watch included pricing, from a Sport version starting at $349 to an Apple Watch Edition in gold costing a princely $10,000. In between, the watches range in price from $399 to $1,099, depending mainly on thickness and the type of watch band a customer wants. Apple also showed off how the device will work with Apple Pay.

If there was a disappointment it would have to be in the battery life for the Apple Watch. The company did not reveal the actual capacity of the watch, according to BGR, but Apple did say that the battery will be powerful enough to run the device with moderate use for 18 hours. A lot depends on what “moderate use” means and, we won’t know about that until the Apple Watch starts shipping to customers on April 24.

Investor reaction to the event was initially strong, sending Apple shares up about 2.3% before dropping back to down for the day at $125.06. An hour before the closing bell on Monday, the shares traded down 0.2%, at $126.38 in a 52-week range of $73.05 to $133.60.

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About the Author Paul Ausick →

Paul Ausick has been writing for a673b.bigscoots-temp.com for more than a decade. He has written extensively on investing in the energy, defense, and technology sectors. In a previous life, he wrote technical documentation and managed a marketing communications group in Silicon Valley.

He has a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Chicago and now lives in Montana, where he fishes for trout in the summer and stays inside during the winter.