March 12, 2010: Apple passes Walmart and investment firm Berkshire Hathaway in value to take third place in market capitalization among publicly listed U.S. companies.
Apple’s valuation roars past $200 billion as a result of intense excitement over the first-generation iPad. Things look good for the company as it guns for powerhouses ExxonMobil and Microsoft.
The months-long slide in the value of Apple shares reached the point on Tuesday that the company is now worth less than $2 trillion.
In an ironic twist, this happened exactly one year to the day after it surpassed the $3 trillion mark.
December 12, 1980: Apple goes public, floating 4.6 million shares on the stock market at $22 per share.
In the biggest tech IPO of its day, more than 40 out of 1,000 Apple employees become instant millionaires. As Apple’s biggest shareholder, 25-year-old Steve Jobs ends the day with a net worth of $217 million. However, the big payday triggers internal tensions as it highlights Cupertino’s class divide.
December 6, 2000: Apple Computer’s stock price falls after the company posts its first quarterly loss since Steve Jobs’ return to Cupertino in 1997.
Shares tumble $3 to just $14 a share as doom-predicting pundits worry that the big Apple comeback might come screeching to a halt. Little did they know …
September 17, 2012: On the back of record iPhone 5 preorders of 2 million in 24 hours, Apple’s stock price hits a new all-time high. For the first time in history, AAPL breaks the $700 mark in after-hours trading. Passing the milestone cements Cupertino’s place as the world’s most valuable publicly traded company.
Amazingly, the new record is $270 a share higher than Apple at the start of the year. The stock rose 65% in just nine months.
August 20, 2012: Apple passes a financial milestone as it becomes the most valuable publicly traded stock ever.
The company it bests to attain this record? Longtime rival Microsoft, which peaked on December 30, 1999. Apple’s surge to the top spot serves as a reminder of just how radically the fortunes of both companies changed over the years.
August 9, 2011: Apple overtakes oil giant ExxonMobil to become the world’s most valuable publicly traded company.
The milestone caps an astonishing turnaround for Cupertino. Just 15 years earlier, it looked like it was just about “game over” for Apple.
Apple is no longer the world’s most valuable company. That honor now goes to the Saudi Aramco oil giant. The Mac-maker had (mostly) held onto the title since 2020, but has now lost it.
So far in 2022, the value of AAPL shares is down 20%, while the share value of the Saudi oil company has surged 25%.
For a brief period, the Saudi Aramco oil giant took over from Apple as the world’s most valuable company. A rally on Tuesday has since put the Mac-maker back on top, but all it would take is another bad day on Wall Street for Apple to lose the title again.
This comes after Apple has lost over 14% of its value in 2022, while Aramco gained about 28%.
Apple’s share price was up 0.5% at the end of trading on Monday, marking a 10th consecutive increase for the first time in more than a decade.
That’s despite reports that indicate Apple has been forced to slash iPhone SE 3 orders due to weaker-than-expected demand. But one analyst says investors are more interested in the performance of iPhone 14 later this year.
