Malcolm Owen
Apple's share price has closed at a new all-time high, ending the trading day at $179.98, exceeding the previous record closing price of $179.26 but narrowly missing the elusive $180 milestone.
Apple started the day on NASDAQ at $177.96, quickly climbing to $179 by 11:11am, then hovered between $179.20 and $179.50 for most of the day. From 2pm, the price edged closer to $180, briefly hitting the figure before falling backwards, then rising back up to its finishing price.
The highest AAPL traded for the day was $179.98, achieved in the hour before markets closed.
The setting of a new record follows less than two weeks after stock activity suggested it would break $180 at market close, but ultimately failed. The price briefly rose over $180 in February during the day, but ending February 26 at $178.97, before dipping to $175 three days later.
The previous time Apple got close to the $180 figure was in January this year, when the stock closed at just over $179 on January 17, before dipping below $179 again two days later. Since then, Apple's stock price briefly dipped down to $155.15 on February 8, but had been steadily climbing back up for the rest of the month.
The major gains at the end of February could be partly attributed to legendary investor Warren Buffet's appearance on CNBC's "Squawk Box", where he explained why Berkshire Hathaway increased its investment in Apple earlier in February. The transaction raised the investment firm's stake by 23.3 percent to 165.3 million shares.
During the appearance, Buffet called the iPhone "a very sticky product," noting Apple's strong ecosystem had the ability to lock in customers "at least psychologically and mentally" to its products and services. Buffet also revealed the firm had bought more Apple stock than it has for any other company over the last year.
The stock peak also arrives after Apple revealed it had achieved record revenue of $88.3 billion and earnings per share of $3.89 in its latest quarterly results. While iPhone sales were down year-on-year by 1.2 percent, iPhone-derived revenues were far higher than Wall Street predicted, due to the increase of the average selling price in the quarter to $796.42.
Wall Street is also likely to be pleased with Apple's plans to shrink its cash balance from $285 billion down to nothing, as confirmed by Apple Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri during the results conference call. While not going into specifics, Maestri hinted at potential increases to dividends and stock buybacks, but is expected to provide more detailed plans for the cash hoard in the coming months.
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Wesley Hilliard
AppleInsider Staff
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29 Comments
Appropriate photo.
Poor Sog. He sold off all of his vast Apple stock holdings too soon.
The odds are pretty much in favor of Amazon reaching a $1T market cap long before Apple. Tim Cook is doing OK, but Jeff Bezos is playing to win and that's probably more important to big investors. Apple will be up today but down tomorrow whereas Amazon's share price will continue to climb every day without fail with no negatives surrounding the company.
Apple has the profits and is sitting on around $150B (less debt) and it means absolutely nothing to Wall Street. Amazon has all the momentum and a CEO who wants to absolutely crush the competition. Apple seems tame in comparison. I don't think Tim Cook even cares if Apple reaches a $1T market cap. It's likely a CEO has to own the company to care about such things. Apple will never be worth what Amazon is. Jeff Bezos has no match in terms of sheer greed and is being wholly backed by investors with nearly as much greed. In those terms, Apple has already lost.
Apple only needs about $80B or so to reach that elusive $1T mark but will take forever to get there. Amazon can gain that much value in a couple of weeks. Apple shareholders should simply settle for higher dividends and little else. There doesn't appear to be any significant share gains coming to loyal Apple shareholders. Apple is playing it very conservatively in terms of revenue growth. No large acquisitions will take place. It's all going to be done with slightly increased dividends and share buy-backs. As far as Wall Street is concerned, that's about the most boring thing possible to greedy big investors. Apple will remain stuck trying to sell more iPhones in a saturated smartphone market. Absolutely no one wants to hear about $1000 smartphones and I understand that's more than most consumers are willing to pay. I would think it would be very difficult for Apple to convince consumers to pay that much for a smartphone. I guess Apple doesn't see it that way.
To me, it makes more sense for Apple to pursue other businesses to increase revenue. Apple should have acquired a cloud business like all the other major tech companies did but they totally missed that chance. The "cloud" was easy, low-hanging fruit early on but now that's also crowded. I don't have a clue about what Apple should pursue next but smart electric cars seems like a possible solution. Amazon can get into anything with Wall Street's blessing, but things don't work that way for Apple. Whatever Apple tries will be met with doubts and fears and investors dumping the stock by the truckload.
Anyway, I've been prepared for Amazon easily passing Apple in overall value. Nothing can stop that from happening. Apple has already lost the market cap crown in investor mindset. The reality will take place before 2018 ends. For Jeff Bezos it was like taking candy from a baby.