Apple cruises past old market capitalization record, may hit $800 billion before earnings
As the NASDAQ opened on Tuesday morning, Apple's stock price at the opening bell drove its market capitalization above historical highs, with $800 billion in sight and possibly reachable before the quarterly earnings report.
Apple's market capitalization broke $700 billion on Feb. 14. To reach $800 billion, the stock price needs to climb to $149.42 before trading stops on the stock prior to Apple's earnings announcement.
To reach $149.92, the stock only needs a $2.38 rise from Tuesday's opening price of $147.54. At 11:00 a.m. eastern time, the stock sits at around $148.
The math is likely to change after the announcement, after Apple announces how many shares it has bought back on the quarter. Apple has spent $144 billion on stock buybacks since initiating its capital return program in 2013.
Apple shares outstanding Q1 2017. Source: YCharts.com
Wall Street is predicting Apple's revenue for the quarter to be up year-over-year to $53.1 billion, with a gross margin of 38.7 percent. The company is expected to edge out last year's iPhone sales numbers, selling 52.2 million iPhones.
Apple sold a record 78.3 million iPhones in the first quarter of Apple's 2017 fiscal year that ended in December, but still saw extensive delays on 7 Plus shipments -- which could serve to boost the March quarter's sales numbers.
Apple's market capitalization broke $700 billion on Feb. 14. To reach $800 billion, the stock price needs to climb to $149.42 before trading stops on the stock prior to Apple's earnings announcement.
To reach $149.92, the stock only needs a $2.38 rise from Tuesday's opening price of $147.54. At 11:00 a.m. eastern time, the stock sits at around $148.
The math is likely to change after the announcement, after Apple announces how many shares it has bought back on the quarter. Apple has spent $144 billion on stock buybacks since initiating its capital return program in 2013.
Apple shares outstanding Q1 2017. Source: YCharts.com
Wall Street is predicting Apple's revenue for the quarter to be up year-over-year to $53.1 billion, with a gross margin of 38.7 percent. The company is expected to edge out last year's iPhone sales numbers, selling 52.2 million iPhones.
Apple sold a record 78.3 million iPhones in the first quarter of Apple's 2017 fiscal year that ended in December, but still saw extensive delays on 7 Plus shipments -- which could serve to boost the March quarter's sales numbers.
Comments
I saw the same thing, all the other services I look at show the lower number. Yahoo says 5.25B outstanding shares so that would 774B on a price of $147.5, I just went NASDAQ and they too are showing the same 774B, But you go to Google and they show the same outstanding share of 5.25B so their stupid engineers do not know how to do simple math, go figure image all the students who look up information like this on Google and got the wrong facts. Does not surprise me Google is creating fake news. They can figure out how to drive a car but can not multiply two numbers together. This reminds me of the Mars probe that crashed into the surface of the planet because the NASA engineers miss calculate and the probe came in too fast.
For apple to top 800B they need to trade at $152.40 assuming Apple has not bought more share off the market.
PS: noticed that you edited your comment, so probably you can disregard what I said above.
All of that should be caveated though, because Apple will likely report a lower outstanding shares count tomorrow. And, if it does, that lower count will be as of earlier this month. So the prices needed to reach certain capitalization marks are likely a bit higher.
yeah I caught my mistake after I re-read what I wrote and you wrote. and thought I edited before anyone saw it.
Apple typically files its quarterly reports with the SEC the day after it announces earnings. Those reports typically give an updated outstanding shares number as of two or three weeks after the past quarter ended.
Anyway, Google definitely has the wrong number.
Can we all come to an agreement on what "fake news" is? I consider "fake news" intentionally-created falsehoods with an agenda to affect public behavior. That is not what it seems like Google is doing here. They may have a simple math error or be using some other algorithm that is outputting a bad result. I don't see intent to convey knowingly false information. Further, I don't see how Google could have an agenda here to purposely inflate Apple's market cap. Apple is literally a competitor to Google, so if anything Google would want Apple's market cap to seem lower, not higher.
TL;DR: This is simply a mistake, not "fake news".
I'm not expecting much in the way of share gains when Apple reports today. Apple is no FANG stock, for sure. I can only hope the stock price doesn't tank more than a couple of percent. It may be embarrassing for such a wealthy company to be overshadowed by the FANG stocks but that's just how the stock market works. I can at least depend on some decent dividends so maybe I shouldn't be so greedy. I've owned Apple since 2004 and have seen a decent amount of gains. It's just one financial quarter and I'm more concerned about yearly gains. I wish all fellow Apple shareholders good luck and to not lose faith in the company. I feel positive about Apple being able to repatriate its overseas cash at a 15% rate this year and that's a good thing to look forward to.
+ Rackspace...
I don't think Nasdaq would have a way to know exactly how many shares are outstanding at a given moment, other than based on Apple's own reporting. It wouldn't know how many shares Apple had bought itself and retired. Apple buys shares both on the open market and through share repurchase agreements.