Apple was the first to hit the market cap milestone in 2018. Then, Microsoft and Amazon followed. Apple and Microsoft are still valued at more than a trillion dollars while Amazon has since fallen below the mark.
Topline: Another tech behemoth has joined the $1 trillion club, with the stock market value of Google parent Alphabet surpassing the milestone for the first time on Thursday, making it the fourth big tech company to do so.
Alphabet Hits $1 Trillion Market Valuation
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Tesla share prices hit $1,036.63 Monday afternoon, before settling at just under $1,025 at market close for a valuation of $1.01 trillion. Meanwhile, Facebook, which first hit the $1 trillion marker in June, has had its valuation sink to around $927 billion.
Apple was the first US company to hit the milestone market valuation in 2018. Since, Microsoft and Amazon have also touched $1 trillion market values. Apple and Microsoft are still valued at more than $1 trillion, but Amazon has since fallen below the number.
The stock gains and consequent record valuation for Alphabet come amid increased calls for online privacy and antitrust regulation that have proven challenging for the business. But despite those concerns, Alphabet and shares of other technology companies have continued to climb, solidifying their spots as leaders in the US market and economy.
Alphabet's record market valuation also comes after a historical change in leadership at the company. In December, co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin announced that they would step back from the company, which they founded in 1998. Sundar Pichai took on the top role and is now the CEO of both Google and Alphabet.
Short interest in the stock, a measure of how many investors are betting on a price decline, is at 1%, near a 52-week high for the company and higher than competitors such as Microsoft, and Facebook, according to Refinitv data. Alphabet joins Apple, Amazon.com, and Microsoft as the only U.S. companies to hit $1 trillion in market value.
Bearish investors, however, can point to Amazon.com, which saw its market value fall below $1 trillion after its streak of record profits ended in July. Shares of the company are down nearly 7% over the last six months, compared with a 10% gain in the S&P 500 overall.
New York: As Google-parent Alphabet Inc became on Thursday the fourth U.S. company to top a market value of more than $1 trillion, some funds holding its shares are wondering whether now is the time to cash in on the stock's extraordinary gains.
The table below lists all companies which have, at any point, had a market capitalization in excess of $1 trillion, the date on which their market cap first exceeded $1 trillion and their record market cap.[4]
Google was founded in Stanford University dorms in 1998, three years after co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin met. Page and Brin hired experienced executive Eric Schmidt to transform their hot startup into a more mature business in 2001. The company went public on the Nasdaq exchange on Aug. 19, 2004, with shares priced at $85, for a market valuation of $23 billion.
Apple became the inaugural $1 trillion tech sector member in August 2018, and its stock has continued to climb in 2019, soaring 86%. Loup Ventures managing partner Gene Munster, a long-time Apple analyst, went so far Monday as to predict Apple could top a $2 trillion evaluation in 2020. Microsoft followed in the first half of 2019.
Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, -1.93% surpassed $1 trillion in value in a single intraday trade in Sept. 2018, but has never closed a trading session above the mark and thus has never officially had a $1 trillion market cap. Facebook Inc. US:FB is the next closest to the mark, but has a ways to go: It closed Thursday with an all-time high market cap of $632.4 billion, thanks in large part to a 51% jump in its shares in 2019. Evercore ISI on Monday raised its price target on shares of the social-networking giant to $280 from $235.
Shares of Amazon AMZN popped nearly 2% in midday trading Tuesday to lift the e-commerce powerhouse to over $1 trillion in market value. Amazon joined Apple AAPL as just the second publicly listed U.S. company to join the trillion-dollar club. On top of this splashy news, Amazon stock still looks like a strong buy at its new high.
Looking back even further, Amazon's valuation sat at around $250 billion in September 2015. Investors will note Amazon's insane three-year rise, which helped prove the company's outsized impact on the economy and the stock market.
Amazon follows Apple, which hit $1 trillion in market value on August 2. Jeff Bezos' behemoth beat out Google parent Alphabet GOOGL and Microsoft MSFT to the trillion dollar punch, with both nearing the $900 million mark. Meanwhile, Facebook's FB woes have seen it fall well behind its fellow tech giants.
The broader crypto market, which was already reeling from a dramatic crash that wiped out $2 trillion in value, took another hit as the market value of issued tokens fell below $900 million. The price of bitcoin dipped below $17,000.
Apple Inc. on Monday became the first company with a $3 trillion stock market value, lifted by investor confidence that the iPhone maker will keep launching best-selling products as it explores new markets such as automated cars and virtual reality.
On the first day of trading in 2022, the Silicon Valley company's shares hit an intraday record high of $182.88, putting Apple's market value just above $3 trillion. The stock ended the session up 2.5% at $182.01, with Apple's market capitalization at $2.99 trillion.
Apple stock has been trading with record highs over the past few weeks, and today the company has reached a new milestone in valuation. The value of a single AAPL share hit around $182.90 during intraday trading, making Apple the first company in the world to be worth $3 trillion.
Apple's worth has eclipsed that of other big tech firms. Amazon's market cap is about $1.7 trillion, Microsoft $1.6 trillion and Google parent Alphabet $1 trillion. They've left other corporate giants in the dust. Walmart is valued at $381 billion, JPMorgan Chase $300 billion and Exxon Mobil $179 billion.
If you just look at American companies today, it may look that way. In the S&P 500 index of the biggest U.S. stocks, Apple sits comfortably atop the list with a $1 trillion market value, followed by Amazon.com at $872 billion, Google-parent Alphabet at $844 billion, Microsoft at $816 billion, and Facebook at $504 billion.
With full control of trade in Asia and the tulip craze, which ended in a disastrous crash, the company's overall market value reached 78 million Dutch guilders in the early 1600s, according Alex Planes, writing for Motley Fool. That equates to roughly $8.2 trillion today.
Speculation in Chinese stocks and oil drove PetroChina beyond $1 trillion market value, eventually reaching $1.7 trillion based on today's dollars. Of course, that was right around the time of the global financial crisis, after which oil prices collapsed, Chinese stocks plunged, and PetroChina shares have since lost over $800 billion in market value.
As one of the wealthiest companies on the planet with a market value of $1 trillion, Google is the monopoly gatekeeper to the internet for billions of users and countless advertisers worldwide. For years, Google has accounted for almost 90 percent of all search queries in the United States and has used anticompetitive tactics to maintain and extend its monopolies in search and search advertising.
Apple Inc. on Monday became the first U.S. company to hit US$3 trillion in market capitalization, thanks to investor confidence that the iPhone maker will keep launching best-selling products as it explores new markets such as automated cars and metaverse.
At issue is the power of so-called platform companies that provide a venue for others, for example, to sell new or second-hand books. In an inherent conflict of interest, that business has also long been a mainstay of Amazon, which was founded by Jeff Bezos in his garage in 1994 and has gone on to command a market valuation of nearly $1 trillion.
But Amazon's market value now stands below $800 billion. Apple could also be knocked out of the $1 trillion club if its earnings for the latest quarter disappoint investors the same way Amazon and Alphabet reports did this past week.
Investors have poured money into the equity markets and technology stocks have soared, especially in the last 2 years. The Canalys Titans Index (15 stocks representing different corners of tech) has had 8 consecutive quarters of Y-o-Y double-digit market cap growth. Apple and Amazon have both hit $1 trillion valuations.
The tech giant released a strong earnings report Tuesday, with earnings per share at $2.34 -- about a 7 percent spike compared to analysts' predictions. (This report was Q3 for Apple rather than Q2, as the company denotes its fiscal year differently.) A large chunk of this growth can be attributed to Apple's "other products" category (such as the Apple Watch, the HomePod and AirPods), which is up 37 percent since the same time last year, and its "other services" category (the App Store, Apple Pay, AppleCare and more). And although the EPS surprise factor here isn't especially consequential, the company's new market cap is. As of Thursday morning, Apple became the first $1 trillion company in U.S. history, as the company's stock enjoyed a spike post-earnings report. 2ff7e9595c
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