Apple stock hits $200 for the first time post-split

Following Apple's third quarter earnings announcement, the company's stock broke the $200 per share milestone at 10:37am eastern on Tuesday morning, for the first time since Apple's stock split four years ago.

After hovering just below $200, the share price briefly touched the milestone, before dropping just below the figure. A few minutes later at 10:39am eastern, the price again reached $200, then continued to hover around the same level. The price remained over $200 for most of the afternoon and closed Wednesday at $201.50. According to one analyst, Apple's stock will need to reach $203.45 in order to hit a market capitalization of $1 trillion.

Apple's stock closed at $190.29 Tuesday, 30 minutes before the earnings were announced. For the hour or so after earnings, and through the overnight, the price hovered around $198.

The company hit its previous post-split all-time high, of $194.82, on July 25. Its stock has broken records throughout the year.

Apple executed a 7-for-1 stock split in June 2014, in order to make its stock more accessible to a greater number of investors. Before the split, Apple's stock hit an all-time high of $700 in September of 2012, following strong sales of the iPhone 5.

In April of this year, Apple's stock dropped into the 160s on fears that it was looking at soft iPhone demand. But the announcement of surprisingly strong Q2 earnings — as well as the revelation that Warren Buffett had upped his stake in the company — brought the price up to a then-high of $183.83 on May 4.

There were then no significant reasons for Apple's stock to drop at any point in the third quarter, leading up to Tuesday's earnings.