Apple on Monday became the first publicly traded company to reach more than $3 trillion in market capitalization, marking the latest milestone in Silicon Valley’s dramatic share gains since the iPhone’s introduction in 2007.
Shares of Apple are up about 5,800% since co-founder and former Chief Executive Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPhone in January 2007, far outpacing the S&P 500’s gains of about 230% over the same period.
Microsoft and Amazon have briefly eclipsed Apple as the most valuable publicly traded company in the United States for the past three years, although Apple has recently taken a lead. Microsoft’s market cap currently stands at about $2.5 trillion, while Amazon’s is at about $1.7 trillion, trailing Alphabet’s now at $1.9 trillion.
Several big tech companies saw their shares outperform Apple’s gain of 34% in 2021. Microsoft and Tesla both rose about 50% in 2021, while Alphabet rose 65% and Nvidia rose 125%, boosting the chipmaker’s stock market cap. over $700 billion came in.
Apple now accounts for about 7% of the S&P 500, up just 5% in June and back in line with where it started in 2021.
After profiting 2.9% on Monday afternoon, Apple is trading at about 30 times its projected 12-month profit, down from a multiple of 32 in early 2021, but still at highs since 2008, according to data from Refinitiv.
As Apple’s stock has risen in recent months, so have analysts’ price targets. According to Refinitiv, JPMorgan and BofA Global Research each raised their price target for Apple’s stock to $210 in December. That price target would bring Apple’s market cap to about $3.45 trillion.
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