Apple's market valuation soars more than $150 billion on Friday
Apple's shares took off on Friday following the release of the tech giant's fiscal second quarter earning report on Thursday after the market closed. Even though iPhone sales declined 10% in the quarter on a year-over-year basis and were less than Wall Street estimates, any bad news was quickly forgotten when Apple announced a record $110 billion share buy back. That news even topped the announcement that Apple's second largest business segment, Services, reported record revenues during the quarter.
The stock took off instantly in after-hours trading on Thursday and that momentum continued when the opening bell rang on Friday. During Friday's trading session, Apple hit a high of $187 before closing at $183.36 for a gain of $10.33 or 5.97%. With 15,509,763,000 shares outstanding, today's surge added $160.21 billion to Apple's market capitalization giving the company a valuation of $2.83 trillion. At the current stock price, Apple would be able to buy back nearly 600 million shares and reduce the number of shares outstanding by 3.9%.
As Apple heads toward a valuation of $3 trillion, the last time the stock hit such a lofty mark was in December when investors had the release of the Vision Pro on their mind. The spatial computer has not been a huge hit since its release in February, but Apple had already expected that, with a starting price of $3,499, initial sales of the device would not be stellar.
Since Apple's IPO in December 1980, the stock has soared over 140,000%
The tech giant's 52-week high was $199.62 and the 52-week low was $164.08 which was reached last month. Even with today's rally, Apple shares are down $2.28 or 1.23% since the beginning of 2024. Over the last year Apple is up $17.57 or 10.60%. And to show you the advantages of long-term investing, during the last five years, Apple has risen $134.06 or 271.93%. Since its initial public offering in December 1980, Apple's stock has grown by $183.23 or 140,946% (these figures adjust for several stock splits that Apple announced over the years).
Apple's stock has probably created quite a few millionaires over the years not even including those insiders like Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak who became millionaires immediately after the IPO. As the iPhone ages, Wall Street is going to want to hear about Apple's next big thing and Vision Pro is not going to be that product. I still expect AR glasses to be the iPhone's replacement but who knows? It could be a device that we can't even conceive of at this time.
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