Apple Nears Record As Market Cap Again Surpasses US$1 Trillion

Apple Inc. shares rose for a fourth straight session on Thursday, with the iPhone maker hitting its highest level since October as investors continued to feel bullish about the company’s recent product event.

Shares gained as much as 1.3 percent on the day and have risen nearly 17 percent off a low hit in August. The rally puts the company less than three percent below a record close hit in October 2018.

With the day’s move, Apple further expanded its market capitalization above the US$1 trillion threshold. When Apple closed in the 13-digit club on Wednesday, that was the first time it had done so this year.

At current levels, Apple has a valuation of about US$1.02 trillion, putting it slightly under Microsoft Corp., the largest publicly traded U.S. stock, with a valuation of US$1.05 trillion.

Microsoft has consistently had a valuation above US$1 trillion ever since early June, and it has been larger than Apple since late April.

At its product event earlier this week, Apple unveiled new versions of its iPhone that were cheaper than had been expected, along with arcade and video-streaming services that were also seen as inexpensive.

Bloomberg Intelligence wrote that the iPhone price was “likely to aid unit growth,” while the Apple TV+ service “may attract new users and draw existing ones more deeply into Apple’s ecosystem.”―BNN Bloomberg