iTunes Visits Surge 413% Over Christmas
Hitwise has reported today that visits to the Apple iTunes website surged 413% on Christmas Day this year over Christmas Day 2005.
In addition to this visits to the online Apple Store showed an increase of 110% when comparing Christmas Day 2006 to the previous year.
Options Scandal Unlikely to Impact Jobs
Analyst Gene Munster of PiperJaffray believes there is a very low likelihood that CEO Steve Jobs will be affected by the ongoing stock-option investigation.
"If individuals at Apple did falsify certain options documents, that is clearly a negative for the company, but we believe there is less than a 5 percent chance that Steve Jobs would have been personally involved," wrote Munster.
Apple shares fell 5-percent in early morning trading, as a result of a report that was published Tuesday related to Jobs and the upcoming financial restatement by Apple.
"We would have expected that he [Steve Jobs] have his own legal counsel for the duration of the options investigation," Munster said. "If the 10-K suggests that former officers were involved in falsifying certain options related documents, but does not suggest Jobs was involved, we expect the stock will rebound."