Apple's market cap briefly topped $800 billion after Berkshire Hathaway discloses its stake ballooned to $19.2 billion
Apple Inc.'s market value briefly topped $800 billion for the first time Monday, as the stock surged further into uncharted territory after Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. disclosed it boosted its stake in the technology giant to nearly $20 billion in recent months.
The billionaire investor's investment vehicle disclosed in its quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edg ... 0-qq22017412017.htm) that Apple was its second-biggest equity holding by value, after increasing its investment to $19.2 billion worth of the stock as of March 31 from $7.1 billion as of Dec. 31.
Based on the March 31 closing price of Apple's stock (AAPL), that means Berkshire owned about 133.65 million Apple shares, or 2.6% of the shares outstanding. That would push Berkshire up to fourth on the list of largest shareholders, according to FactSet data.
The stock ran up as much as 3.2% to an all-time intraday high of $153.70 in afternoon trade. At that price, and with 5.21 billion shares outstanding as of March 31 according to filings, Apple's market capitalization reached $801.37 billion.
Apple market capitalization milestones Date of first close above milestone
$10 billion August 27, 1999
$50 billion November 2, 2005
$100 billion May 30, 2007
$200 billion March 9, 2010
$300 billion January 3, 2011
$400 billion January 18, 2012
$500 billion February 29, 2012
$600 billion August 17, 2012
$700 billion February 10, 2015
Dow Jones Data Group via FactSet Research Systems, Apple (dates)
Apple shares pared some gains to close up 2.7% at $153.00, to bring the market cap down to $797.72 billion, but that was still by far the highest among U.S. companies.
Behind Apple, Google parent Alphabet Inc.'s (GOOGL) market cap was $659.96 billion, Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT) market cap was $532.25 billion and Amazon.com Inc.'s (AMZN) market cap was $453.62 billion, according to FactSet.