Apple stock touches $600 in early morning trading ahead of iPad launch
Apple's stock catapulted to new heights on Thursday, briefly breaching the $600 barrier for the first time in the company's history as investors remain upbeat about this Friday's iPad launch.
Shares of the Cupertino, Calif.-based company hit the $600 mark just moments before the 9:30 a.m. opening bell, continuing the staggering rate of momentum that has seen the stock leap nearly $200 since the first trading day of the year, when it sat at $411.23.
Apple shares bounced around the $599 range during most of the pre-market trading session on Thursday before reaching an all-time high of $601.01. Shares quickly retreated, however, with little support from the Street at post $600 levels.
As it stands, shares of Apple are up significantly from earlier this week when it reached a new high of $568.10 on Tuesday. The stock has swelled in value ever since last week's unveiling of the new iPad during a media event hosted by chief executive Tim Cook in San Francisco.
It was just last month that the total market capitalization of Apple reached nearly a half-trillion dollars in value. By Thursday, the company's market cap had ballooned by another $50 billion to about $550 billion.
AAPL stock has rocketed higher in anticipation of the new iPad, which is set to go on sale at 8 a.m. local time in 10 countries on Friday. It will be the largest product launch day that Apple has ever orchestrated.
/>AAPL stock is up 46% since the start of 2012. Chart via Google.
With initial online preorders already sold out, analysts have projected that Apple will sell at least 1 million of the new third-generation iPad on its launch day. As the launch comes late in the March quarter, industry watchers generally expect Apple to sell 10.1 million iPads in the current quarter, with sales rebounding in the subsequent June quarter.
Early projections have called for Apple to sell around 66 million total iPads in 2012. Significant growth for the iPad is expected to push AAPL stock even higher, with price targets of $710 at Canaccord Genuity and $720 from Morgan Stanley.
[ View article on AppleInsider ]
Comments
No doubt, 2012 is the year of Apple.
Oh, I completely forgot the new MacBook Airs.
FD: I'm long AAPL (I'm in for about 150 shares at an average price of $417).
Doomed, I tell you.
I hate to say this but this rapid rise in the markets overall and Apple's rapid rise above and beyond the market that seems "unnatural" despite Apple's clearly undervalued state that I wonder if a correction will occur within a week or so.
Doesn't it feel great to see a company you respect finally crack the ceiling?
599.65.... Go go GO!!!
Doesn't it feel great to see a company you respect finally crack the ceiling?
"finally crack the ceiling" == $1 trillion+ in market cap! haha
Currently Apple's market capitalization is larger than the following iconic technology companies combined:
Apple $549.71B
Qualcomm $110.13B
Cisco $108.77B
Amazon $82.94
EMC $59.74B
HP $48.22
VMWare $44.84
Texas Instruments $36.65B
Dell $30.97B
Automatic Data Processing $27.07B
Alternatively, evaluating the top five competitors in Apple's key markets, Apple is larger than the top five competitors in the each of Apple's key markets (personal computers, smartphones and tablets) combined:
Apple $549.71B
Samsung Electronics $178.28B (smartphones and tablets)
Amazon $82.94B (tablets)
HP $48.22B (personal computers)
Dell $30.97B (personal computers)
Nokia $18.33B (smartphones)
Toshiba $18.14B (personal computers)
HTC $17.62B (smartphones)
LG Display $8.95B (smartphones)
Asus\t$7.26B (personal computers)
Acer $3.97B (personal computers)
RIM\t$6.78B (smartphones and tablets)
Barnes & Noble $0.824B (tablets)
Pandigital unknown value (tablets) (would need to be valued at over $100B which is highly unlikely)
*Notably, the latter comparison (of Apple's key market competitors) includes Amazon which arguably provides the best user experience and is fairly comparable in many aspects to Apple iTunes. Even if we add Google as an important component of competitor user experience (Google Play and Google Apps including Gmail, Google Docs, Google Talk, etc.) to include an entire suite for the user experience, Apple is very nearly still larger. In other words, Apple is poised to surpass Google and Google's strategic partners in mobile computing as well as the top personal computer manufacturers in combined market capitalization this year.
Clearly, Apple is Doomed!
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"finally crack the ceiling" == $1 trillion+ in market cap! haha
That's a ways off. Stock will have to hit $1,072.54 per share.
I hate to say this but this rapid rise in the markets overall and Apple's rapid rise above and beyond the market that seems "unnatural" despite Apple's clearly undervalued state that I wonder if a correction will occur within a week or so.
RSI for AAPL is at 86.77, heavily over-bought. I too would expect a correction next week
I hate to say this but this rapid rise in the markets overall and Apple's rapid rise above and beyond the market that seems "unnatural" despite Apple's clearly undervalued state that I wonder if a correction will occur within a week or so.
No doubt we will see a correction at some point. Apple's recent rise relative to the rise in the overall market probably doesn't concern me much though. Apple's earnings growth rate is so much higher than the overall market and the PE so low that it has a lot more running to do to catch up to the overall market. Over simplification, I know, but you get my gist.
Uh...
What happens to exponential curves in the stock market?
What happens to exponential curves in the stock market?
They never approach infinity, but they get pretty darn close?
Ah, wait, that's asymptotic curves. Maybe if we're more a-sympathetic to Microsoft, their stock will start rising. Or perhaps if we stop treating Google like a simple tot, they'd have a higher market cap.
Or maybe if I stop making absolutely wretched puns…
Uh...
What happens to exponential curves in the stock market?
You don't have to worry.
BTW Some guys got cold feet already.
AAPL: 589.26
They never approach infinity, but they get pretty darn close?
Unfortunately not. They cause inexperienced investors and "fans" of companies without the acumen to understand how the stock market works to invest too much in one company, and eventually the bubble pops and people lose their shirts.
Used to be you had to be really old to have participated in the "last" bubble and the current one. These days you only need to be 25 or so. And yet people are still too foolish to have that much hindsight.
If you find yourself "cheering" for something that happens in the stock market, it's probably too late for you.
Buy low, sell high.
Disclosure - still long Apple, but very wary.