Apple closes above $5 trillion market value for first time

Apple ↗ 0.50% ended trading on Wednesday, Oct. 14, worth $5.005 trillion, according to Dow Jones Market Data cited by The Wall Street Journal News Corp ↘ 0.40%. It is only the second company to finish a session above that level; Nvidia ↘ 3.16% was the first. Apple's market value had gone past $5 trillion during trading on six earlier occasions but had never stayed there through the close, the Journal reported.finance.yahoo.com

Apple shares rose 0.5% in a falling market. Reuters Thomson Reuters Corporation ↗ 0.25% reported that hotter-than-expected inflation data pushed the Nasdaq Composite to a sharply lower close.appleinsider.com

A milestone that kept slipping away

Apple first went past $5 trillion during trading on July 28. The level then slipped from its grasp several more times, including on July 29, Sept. 22 and Sept. 28, according to an earlier Wall Street Journal market update. On Tuesday, Oct. 13, the stock hit a record during the session but closed just short, at about $4.98 trillion. The threshold works out to a share price of about $342.61, and Apple finished narrowly above it on Wednesday, AppleInsider reported.appleinsider.com+1

The gain came as other tech stocks fell. Traders raised their bets that the Federal Reserve would raise interest rates. Oracle ↘ 8.83% and CoreWeave ↘ 15.46% dropped, and the Philadelphia SE Semiconductor Index PHLX Semiconductor Sector Index ↘ 4.25% fell for a sixth straight session, Reuters reported. The S&P 500 had its biggest one-day drop since July 29.reuters.com

HomeView and iPhone demand

The rally followed Apple's event in New York on Tuesday, where it unveiled HomeView, a smart-home hub. HomeView uses data from a user's iPhone to make Siri more personal, and Apple says it has safeguards that keep the company from accessing that information, CNBC-TV18 reported. The outlet called the launch a test of Apple's AI strategy as it tries to catch up with Amazon Amazon.com, Inc. ↘ 1.74% and Google Alphabet Inc. ↘ 1.68% in smart-home devices.cnbctv18.com

AppleInsider said demand for the iPhone 18 Pro drove much of the climb, even with reports of production cuts. The underlying business has also been growing. In its fiscal third quarter, Apple reported revenue of $109.42 billion, up 16.4% from a year earlier, and iPhone revenue rose 22%, according to CNBC-TV18.appleinsider.com+1

A test for Ternus

The Journal called the milestone a high point of the Tim Cook era and a quiet challenge for new CEO John Ternus. It wrote that Ternus needs to improve Apple's AI to power the company's next phase. Some worry about the price: at about 39 times earnings, Apple carries valuation risk, according to MarketBeat. Barron's noted that Apple bucked the market's downward trend and asked whether it can hold.marketbeat.com+2