SHARES BOUNCE Shares of Apple rose 5 percent to 95

Investors who had been unnerved by Jobs's gaunt appearancelast year, and the lack of a clear explanation from thecompany, heaved a sigh of relief. Pacific Crest Securities analyst Andy Hargreaves said theannouncement did allay his and many investors' concerns aboutJobs' health, but said he doesn't expect the whispers to stop "Is it going to put the fears to rest No ... just based onexperience I would expect there to continue to be rumors on hishealth deteriorating But this is pretty definitive," he said. Apple's board said in a separate statement that Jobs hasits full support during his recuperation. Jobs said the cause of his weight loss had been a mysteryto himself and his doctors until he decided a few weeks agothat getting to the root of the problem was his top priority Dr.

Stuart Weiss, an endocrinologist at New York UniversityLangone Medical Center said the announcement left somequestions unanswered. "With the information he's given, it's very difficult togive a precise diagnosis," he said. Weiss said some patients who have undergone surgery toremove pancreatic cancer are unable to properly absorbnutrients and suffer weight loss if the pancreas is"insufficient" meaning it no longer produces vital digestiveenzymes. He said pancreatic insufficiency is fairly easy to diagnoseand drugs can improve the situation within weeks or months. Another possibility, he said, is that traces of pancreaticcancer could escape into the bloodstream after surgery andproduce hormones that interfere with absorption of food. But in that scenario, Weiss said patients can require morecancer surgery and must be given injections of drugs that limitthe hormone-secreting ability of lingering tumor cells. SHARES BOUNCE Shares of Apple rose 5 percent to $95.40 in afternoon tradeon the Nasdaq.

But the stock remains far below its 12-monthhigh of $192.24, hit in May 2008, amid concerns about how theslump in consumer spending will hurt sales of the company'shigh-end products. In addition, some analysts fear that without a big productlaunch - such as last year's 3G iPhone, there will be no sharecatalyst in what is expected to be a dismal year for computerand consumer electronics companies. However, fears about Jobs' health seemed to be top of mindfor many investors, so Monday's announcement may succeed inbolstering Apple's shares in the near term. Adam Harter, an analyst at Financial Enhancement Group,said his company added to its position in Apple a couple ofmonths ago, when the stock was trading in the mid-$80s. "At that point of time we felt the Steve Jobs' premium wasalready backed out of the stock price. So anything that sayshe's not in bad health is good news and this appears to sayhe's in much better health than the market had anticipated sothe upside can be significant," Harter said.