Apple has become the first company to reach a trillion-dollar market capitalisation overnight, beating rivals Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet to the milestone which in all truth is just that and nothing more.
The shares closed at $US207.39, just above the $207.04 level that took the value to a trillion dollars and the price of $US207.05, which took it past.
The milestone came earlier than expected because of the solid June quarter financial results announced earlier in the week and a combination of robust iPhone sales and the impact of the company’s multi-billion dollar share buyback.
Apple updated its latest share count on Wednesday, saying in a quarterly filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that its share count was 4,829,926,000 on July 20, less than the 4,842,917,000 it reported on Tuesday for the end of the June quarter.
That allowed analysts to produce the trillion dollar value estimate level and Marketwatch.com said the company’s shares passed that level for a seven second period from 11:48:04 am Thursday (New York time) to 11:48:11 with 49 trades with a total of just under 6,100 shares involved at a price of $US207.05.
The shares then eased back under that level, then rose again and continued in that vein for the session, ending at $US207.39, valued at more than $US1.001.6 trillion.
Of course if Apple has bought back any shares since July 20 (The date of its SEC filing on the number of shares on issue) then the trillion dollar level will need a higher share price. We won’t know this until a new filing from Apple.
Apple shares rose 2.9% on Thursday after the 5.8% jump on Wednesday and are up nearly 9% in the past two days since releasing its June quarter figures.
Apple bought back a record $43 billion of its own shares in the first six months of 2018, and its report to the SEC suggested it has continued that program in recent weeks. It has another buyback campaign of $US100 billion to start soon.
The big winner from Apple’s rise is of course Warren Buffett and his Berkshire Hathaway company. At the end of March Berkshire held 239.6 million Apple shares (after buying 75 million in the first quarter) worth around $US48 billion.
That was up $US2.6 billion from Wednesday’s near 6% rise and more than $US8 billion in the last four months. That assumes Berkshire has not been topping up its holding.
We may learn more tonight, Sydney time with Berkshire due to release its third quarter results. If not we will on August 14 when, under US law, fund managers have to reveal quarterly details of their holdings.
