Apple stock crosses $600 per share for the first time since 2012!

Investors are liking Apple’s direction lately, pushing the stock to $600 per share for the first time since 2012. Shares of AAPL closed at $600.96 each on Monday, a nice hike up from the under $400 price the stock was sitting at in April 2013.

Apple’s shares were up more than $8 for the day to reach the 52 week high, bringing the Cupertino-based company’s market capitalization to a hefty $517.65 billion.

It’s not new products that have pushed Apple’s stock higher – we haven’t seen the promised new product category yet – but rather continued successful quarterly performance, an increased stock buyback, and a 7-for-1 stock split that is set to take place in June.

“We’re confident in Apple’s future and see tremendous value in Apple’s stock, so we’re continuing to allocate the majority of our program to share repurchases,” Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, said in April on the company’s latest earnings call. ”We’re also happy to be increasing our dividend for the second time in less than two years.”

The increased buyback was announced in April, when Apple detailed it has raised its share repurchase authorization to $90 billion from the $60 billion level announced last year. Apple expects to utilize a total of over $130 billion of cash under the expanded program by the end of calendar 2015.

The seven-for-one stock split also impressed investors, as each Apple shareholder of record at the close of business on June 2, 2014 will receive six additional shares for every share held on the record date, and trading will begin on a split-adjusted basis on June 9.

Apple’s all-time high was reached in September 2012 when shares crossed $700 for a short period, before tumbling back down.

Apple earnings: $43.6 billion in sales, 37.4M iPhones, 19.5M iPads!

Apple surprised Wall Street today with stronger than expected earnings!

Apple reported earnings of $9.5 billion on $43.6 billion in sales. That was right on target with the $9.5 billion in profit and above the $42.3 billion in sales Wall Street expected, and above Apple’s own expectations, which were between $9.23 and $10.23 per share on sales of $41 billion to $43 billion.

By comparison, Apple tallied up a higher $11.6 billion in profit on sales of $39.2 billion during the same quarter last year. That was fueled by iPhone and iPad sales that were 88 percent and 151 percent better than the year before, respectively.

“We are pleased to report record March quarter revenue thanks to continued strong performance of iPhone and iPad,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement. “Our teams are hard at work on some amazing new hardware, software and services, and we are very excited about the products in our pipeline.”

For its next quarter, Apple said it expects sales between $33.5 and $35.5 billion and a margin between 36 and 37 percent, which is less than the $38.6 billion in sales and 38.6 percent margin analysts, on average, were expecting ahead of the call.

 

Here are all of the important numbers:

• Revenue – $43.6 billion
• EPS (earnings per share) – $10.09
• Gross margin – 37.5%
• iPhones – 37.4 million
• iPads – 19.5 million
• Macs – Just under 4 million
• iPods – 5.6 million

Graph:

 

Apple iPad 3 to be announced first week in March . Four major changes?!

As the iPad 3 launch date nears, rumors regarding the next generation are swirling online, especially after a leaked photo of the new back panel emerged.

That image hinted at changes such as a larger battery and some design elements such as an improved processor, better display and more powerful camera.

A mere glimpse at the casing may not reveal much but a closer look at the back panel suggests at least four major changes to be expected in the iPad 3:

1. New Internal Hardware. Different logic board mounting indicates that a better A6 processor – instead of the A5 processor-based logic board – may be imminent.
2. Larger Width of Logic Board. Larger width of the logic board of the new iPad compared to its predecessor suggests a larger and longer-lasting battery.
3. Improved Camera Lens. Apple already launched a new camera in the iPhone 4S. Thus, an updated version of the camera can be expected in the iPad 3.
4. Different LCD Mounting. The smaller and different mounting system of the logic board supports the speculation that Apple will redesign the display.

Some theorize that item #4 above could mean a revolutionary Retinal display that would feature double-resolution screen 2048×1536 pixels in dimension.

With modified IGZO (indium, gallium, zinc) technology and pixel density of 330 ppi, this would be an upgrade over iPad 2’s 1024×768 and 132 ppi density.

While Apple has not made any sort of official announcement about its launch date for the iPad 3, most experts are indicating an early March launch.

More Apple News :

Apple stock reaching new heights, now worth more than Google and Microsoft combined !

It sure is a good time to be an Apple investor. After reaching new records a couple weeks ago, the stock hasn’t stopped going up ever since. AAPL is currently trading at about $495, which is an absolute record.

As 9to5Mac notes, at its current $460 billion market capitalization, Apple is worth more than 10% of all NASDAQ combined. More impressive maybe is that Apple is worth 52 times RIM’s value, more than 5 times Amazon’s, more than twice the value of Google, and almost double the size of Microsoft. Heck, Apple is worth more than Google and Microsoft combined!

I said it before and I’ll say it again, although the stock is expensive, it’s still a very good time to buy Apple.