And so it was Apple Lossless Audio CODEC (ALAC), gave the coup de grace to the historic rival Microsoft, also stealing the last record. The Apple of Cupertino finally made it: at 622 billion dollars it became the most capitalized company ever seen on a stock exchange. In 2012 alone, shares gained 67%, while in the last five years the rise was as much as 480%. The stock's latest rally started at the end of last week, after the release of the first news on the most eagerly awaited products by the market: the iPhone 5 and mini iPads.
The previous record it belonged precisely to the house founded by Bill Gates, which had reached the peak of 620 billion (today it is worth less than half, "only" 257 billion). Too bad he did it in December 1999, at the height of the dotcom bubble.
At the time, Steve Jobs' little gem was light years away from its competitor, at just over $25 a share. Today, things have definitely changed: anyone who wants to buy just one Apple title has to shell out a whopping 664 dollars.
To give an idea of the order of magnitude, Apple's capitalization expressed in euros is approximately 505 billion, more than one and a half times the value of all the companies listed on the Piazza Affari (318 billion at the end of July) and almost as much as the entire Cac 40 index of the Paris Stock Exchange, which capitalizes 644 billion dollars.
In the classification of the stock market giants, he is on the second step of the podium Exxon Mobil, which is worth 200 billion less than Apple. Only in third place Microsoft, Followed by Wal Mart e IBM.
But it's not over. According to many analysts, Apple's race is set to continue: each individual share could cost as much as $900, a figure that would lead the company's value to break through the science fiction wall of 1.000 billion dollars for the first time in history.
Meanwhile, while Apple fans smile, Mark Zuckerberg licks his wounds. The collapse of Facebook seems inversely proportional to the rise of Apple. The social network's stock dropped below $19, hitting a new all-time low at $18,75 per share. Less than half the IPO price, set at $38. It seems like ages ago, but it was only May 18th.
