Investors rushed to buy Apple stock today, pushing the share price up almost 6 percent. That added a whopping $55 billion to the company’s market capitalization.
Apple is still a bit short of the much-hyped $1 trillion valuation, but moved noticeably closer today.
The run-up came after Apple announced record-breaking profits and revenue in its most recent financial quarter.
Apple is now solidly ahead of its rivals in the race to become the world’s first $1 trillion company. Online shopping giant Amazon is worth $867 billion, while Google’s parent company Alphabet is valued at $854 billion.
Apple shares worth almost $1 trillion. Probably
Apple shares are valued just short of $1 trillion, but exactly how much short isn’t easy to say. One source says it’s at $935 billion, but figuring out Apple’s market capitalization is surprisingly complicated.
We know the share price at close today was $201.50, so all that should be necessary is to multiply that times the number of outstanding shares. Problem is, that number keeps changing.
The company is in the midst of a stock-buyback program. The goal is to transfer to its investors some of the $260 billion Apple recently brought over from Europe.
In a 10-Q form filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission today, the iPhone-maker reported a total of 4,829,926,000 outstanding shares. So the company’s valuation could be at $973 billion. That’s assuming Apple hasn’t further reduced the number of shares since July 20, when that 10-Q form was prepared.
If the number of shares hasn’t changed in the last week or so, the company’s market capitalization will pass $1 trillion when the share price hits $207.05.
Compare Apple’s $55 billion one-day gain to Facebook’s recent $120 billion one-day drop.
