Apple Overtakes Exxon Again, On Its Way To Be First Trillion Dollar Company

Photo by Craig S - http://flic.kr/p/4qVSGp

It’s a roller-coaster on Wall Street. As stocks dived, the venerable Exxon-Mobile continued falling, giving Apple (however briefly) the largest publicly-held company in the world. This comes amid growing speculation the consumer tech titan could be the first company worth $1 trillion.

In a repeat of Tuesday’s madness, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell off an early cliff, plummeting more than 400 points Wednesday. By mid-day, Apple’s market capitalization was $341.64 billion, higher than Exxon’s $336.70. Apple briefly took the lead Tuesday, before the energy giant made up losses to pull ahead by the end of trading.

Could Apple be worth $1 trillion? That’s the current topic of discussion among Wall Street mavens who believe the white-hot tech stock could be worth $900 billion given Apple’s blockbuster sales amid lackluster profits-to-earnings ratio. While tech darling LinkedIn has a P/E of 13.2, Apple is rated at 0.2. This despite an 80 percent annual growth – 10 times that of average firms.

In human terms, a $1 trillion Apple would be like combining the market value of Microsoft, Google, Intel, Amazon and other tech giants, according to the New York Times. As we reported earlier today, Apple still has room to grow.

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