Apple becomes first U.S. public company to reach a $1 trillion valuation

It seems that Wall Street analysts were wrong about Apple-again. Back in March, many of Wall Street's "sharpest minds" expected Amazon to be the first U.S. public company to reach a one trillion dollar valuation. Even though Apple was worth $140 billion more than Amazon at the time, the latter's shares were rising faster on a percentage basis. That led Wall Street to expect Amazon to hit the trillion dollar mark with Apple following a week later. The only part of the prediction that they got right was the timing; analysts expected the breach of the trillion dollar mark to take place in August. This morning, Apple's shares hit the price of $207.05 that by CNBC's calculation results in a trillion dollar valuation for the company.

The latest surge in the stock price came after Apple reported better than expected fiscal third quarter earnings after the market closed on Monday. Hitting a trillion dollar valuation is quite an achievement for the company and the two Steves (Jobs and Wozniak) who founded Apple back on April Fool's Day 1976. On December 12th, 1980, Apple went public at $22. After several stock splits, that is the equivalent of 39 cents for each share.

Apple is actually not the first public company to be valued at one trillion dollars. Back in early November 2007, a company called PetroChina hit the mark after its IPO. But what happened afterward might worry Apple stockholders; after the government limited such frothy speculation, the shares lost $800 billion in valuation.

source: CNBC