Apple Is Once Again the World’s Most Valuable Company !

Apple keeps riding high, and it managed to regain its top spot as the world’s most valuable company. The Cupertino-based boys managed to out-Exxon the Exxon for the 1st place and we congratulate them (and their shareholders) for this major achievement. It’s much better to have a tech giant at the top than one of the companies that make Earth less livable place.

It’s interesting to note that back on August 10, 2011, Apple’s market cap was $337.17 billion, nowhere close to the new high of some $416 billion.

Apple’s market cap was around $414 billion during trading on Thursday, with the company’s stock up as high as $456.80 in the morning session. Exxon, meanwhile, saw shares slide more than 2 percent during the morning, sending its market cap to around $408 billion, following a disappointing earnings report.

The change made Apple, at least temporarily, once again the most valuable company in the world by market cap. It’s a title the company held throughout 2012, but ceded after its stock went tumbling late in the year and through the first half of 2013.

Over the last month, shares of AAPL have surged nearly $50. However, Apple is still off about $100 from the start of 2013, and remains well below its peak north of $700 reached last September.

Exxon overtook Apple’s market cap in late January of this year, amidst a continued selloff of AAPL stock. At the time, Apple was worth about $413 billion, not far from where it was as of Thursday afternoon.

After a few quarters with relatively flat growth, investors are hopeful that Apple can once again gain momentum this fall, particularly with the anticipated debuts of new iPhones and iPads. Among the products expected are a so-called “iPhone 5S,” a new low-cost iPhone, a thinner and lighter fifth-generation iPad, and a second-generation iPad mini.

Apple breaks into Fortune 500’s top 10!

Apple climbed the Fortune 500 this year to the No. 6 spot, its highest-ever ranking, its first time in the top 10, and the top technology company on the influential list, replacing sagging HP.

Fortune, which ranks firms by annual revenue, released its updated Fortune 500 list today. The revenue cutoff this year was approximately $4.8 billion.

Apple easily beat that, with revenue of $156.5 billion for its fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2012, behind Wal-Mart, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Phillips 66 and Berkshire Hathaway, the Nebraska holding company owned by billionaire CEO Warren Buffett.

The Cupertino, Calif. company, whose stock has been hammered since last September, climbed 11 spots from 2012’s No. 17 with a revenue gain of 47%, blowing by former technology lead Hewlett-Packard, which fell from No. 10 to No. 15 in the newest list as revenue there dropped 5%.

Other technology firms near the top of the Fortune 500 were IBM at No. 20, Microsoft at No. 35, Amazon at No. 49, Dell at No. 51, Intel and Google at Nos. 54 and 55, respectively, Cisco at No. 60 and Oracle at No. 80.

Microsoft rose two spots on the list, IBM fell one position, Amazon climbed seven places and Dell, like HP a victim of slumping PC sales, fell seven.

When ranked on profit, Apple was the list’s No. 2 company, reaping $41.7 billion, behind only Exxon Mobil, which posted profit of $44.8 billion. The latter was the second-highest in U.S. history, surpassed only by Exxon’s own 2008 record.

HP had the dubious distinction of taking home the profit booby prize, as it ranked dead last among the 500 firms with a loss of $12.6 billion, largely on the back of a pair of write-downs last year, including one of $8.8 billion for what it called “serious accounting irregularities” at U.K. software company Autonomy before HP acquired the firm in 2011.

Microsoft placed No. 8 when ranked by profit, even though its $17 billion was down 27% from the year before, hit by falling PC sales — and ensuingdeclines in sales of its flagship, Windows — and a booming tablet market, where the Redmond, Wash. company didn’t have a significant play during 2012.

Not all was roses for Apple in 2012, Fortune said, noting the two apologies issued by CEO Tim Cook — one for the mid-year Maps debacle, another a month ago to Chinese consumers over warranty repair policies — and the less-than-dramatic introductions of the iPhone 5 and iPad Mini last fall.

“Still, when every executive wants to invent the iPod of ___, Apple remains an innovation icon,” the magazine wrote.

Apple no longer World’s Most Valuable Company !

Last February, Apple’s market cap of $470 billion made it the most valuable company in the world, ahead of the former leader, international oil and gas firm ExxonMobil. And  Apple kept going. By August, the stock was worth $621 billion making Apple the most valuable company of all-time and giving it a value 53% higher than the New York based runner-up. Apple even rose higher before peaking on the day that the Apple iPhone 5 launched.

But a decline of 38% since then has taken Apple’s market cap below Exxon’s allowing the latter to regain the top spot as the world’s
most valuable company. Exxon now has a market cap of $418.23 billion versus Apple’s $413.06 billion. The company seems to have lost the backing of Wall Street and main street. During its run up to all time highs, both good news and bad news were equally rewarded. Now, good news and bad news are equally met with selling. While Apple CEO Tim Cook might say that the product pipeline is “chock full,”  the cycle that Apple is currently in cannot easily be broken.
About a half dozen U.S. companies in history have hit the $500 billion value mark including Apple, Microsoft and Exxon. Only Apple and Microsoft have ever hit $600 billion.

In other Apple news the company has started pushing out iOS 6.1 beta 5 to registered developers. The update will allow Siri to buy movie tickets, and should improve Apple Maps, Passbook and a fix a few bugs. Beta 4 expires on Tuesday, so registered developers need to update to beta 5 ASAP!