apple bobbing
Rob Swystun / Flickr
Stocks continue to march toward their all-time highs. And they're doing it without the help of Apple.
First the scoreboard:
Dow: 14,127, +38.1 pts, +0.2 percent

S&P 500: 1,525, +7.0 pts, +0.4 percent

NASDAQ: 3,182, +12.2 pts, +0.3 percent

And now the top stories:
  • It was a quiet day in the markets and the economy.  This is the first full week with the federal budget cuts known as sequestration rippling across the economy.  Yet, the markets continued to grind higher.

  • This rally comes amid some jitters in China where China's Shanghai composite tumbled and property stocks got crushed.  The big news was that China announced new measures to contain a heated property market that many people worry has evolved into a bubble.  Coincidentally, "60 Minutes" ran a feature on Sunday night highlighting China's notorious ghost towns, which many consider to be hard evidence of a bubble.

  • Meanwhile, shares of Apple, the most heavily-weighted stock in the S&P 500, tanked.  Notably, it fell below $425, which was the bearish price target of fund manager Jeff Gundlach.  "AAPL over the last six months offers a textbook case study in market behavior and effectively debunks efficient market theories," said Gundlach in an email to Business Insider.  "The weakness is all the more remarkable because it has occurred within the context of a strong overall US stock market.  SPX up 5% since September 19, 2012 and AAPL down 40%."

  • Once again, stocks are just points away from their all-time highs.  The Dow closed at its all-time high of 14,164 on October 9, 2007, the same day the S&P closed at its all-time high of 1,565.