I was sitting at my computer tonight, and a Wall Street Journal alert popped up. I was expecting it to be about yet another downturn in the stock market, but this alert caught my eye because it was for a company that was UP in sales. Aside from Coca-Cola’s improvement last week, this is the first real bright spot I have seen in the stock market in the past couple of weeks.

Even amid the souring economy, the demand for Apple’s premium products is holding up, with the company reporting a $1.14 billion profit as sales jumped 27% to $7.9 billion. CEO Steve Jobs said he was unsure “how this economic downturn will affect Apple,” and the company gave a wide range of financial targets for the holiday quarter. In the September quarter, unit shipments of Macintosh computers rose 21%, while iPod unit shipments rose 8%. Apple also shipped 6.9 million iPhones.

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