You’re probably going to see a lot of stories like this in the coming weeks. Apple stock opened at a record $680 a share this morning, on the first day of trading following the Cupertino company’s massive victory over Samsung on Friday. This surpasses its previous record of $674.88 a share, which was hit last Tuesday, August 21, and it pushes Apple’s market capitalization to a new high of $637 billion.
Apple stock hit an all-time high of $636.64 per share on Thursday, and today that price continues to rise. The last time Apple jumped above $630 a share was back in April, right before its share price began a six-week decline that knocked $115 off the price — and $100 billion off Apple’s market cap — when it ended on May 18.
It’s unlikely we’ll see a repeat of that now, however. According to one analyst, investors are so keen to plough their money into Apple before the iPhone 5 sends share prices rocketing that there’s no sign of those prices dropping anytime soon.
Apple wasn’t willing to go on record with the new iPad’s initial launch figures just yet, but when quizzed about it during the Q&A session of today’s announcement of an official dividend and stock repurchase plan, Tim Cook did let slip a bit about how well the new iPad had done.
Confirming a press release from just ten minutes earlier, Apple CEO Tim Cook has confirmed that Cupertino will use its vast hoard of cash to initiate a quarterly dividend payment to current shareholders, as well as buy back almost $10 billion in stock to help avoid dilution of employee equity.