Stocks closed mostly in the negative territory dragged down by sell-off in Apple. Apple lost 3.57% after The Wall Street Journal and Japan’s Nikkei reported that the co. had cut iPhone production plans because sales had come in below expectations. Dell rallied 12.96% after Bloomberg News reported that the co. was in buyout talks with private-equity firms. Also, Hewlett-Packard soared 4.89% on news that it had dethroned Lenovo as the top maker of personal computers and the recent upgrade to neutral from underweight at J.P. Morgan. Research In Motion rose 10.25% in anticipation of a company event set for Jan. 30 in which RIM will debut new smartphones using the BlackBerry 10 operating system. J. P. Morgan also cut its rating to IBM and EMC to neutral from overweight. Separately, an upgrade by Deutsche Bank couldn’t help Facebook from retreating by 2.44%. Ben Bernanke spoke in Michigan that the central bank should continue to keep monetary policy accommodative as lawmakers cut U.S. spending.
