Apple Stock Toys With $200 Per Share Mark
Banner year helps propel Apple's stock, which briefly stock traded north of $200 on Wednesday. — Recommend this story? — Apple's stock traded north of US$200 briefly on Wednesday, although it settled at $198.95 when the Nasdaq market closed at 4:00 PM.
Context & Ripple Effects
The move caps a year in which Apple redefined itself: the first-ever cross above $200 came twelve months after the iPhone's January 2007 announcement and the AT&T exclusivity deal that put Apple, alongside Google, at the center of the telephony story rather than carriers like AT&T and Verizon.
The timing matters as much as the level — with Steve Jobs's Macworld keynote set for mid-January, analysts are already compiling six months of sourcing on a rumored new portable device, and Apple has just signed News Corp's 20th Century Fox to an online video-on-demand arrangement, giving bulls fresh material beyond the PC business.
First-order effects
- Investors who held through 2007 see the $200 print validate the re-rating from computer maker to consumer-platform company, with the stock settling at $198.95 leaving the round number as a live psychological marker heading into January.
Second-order effects
- Rival handset makers and carriers face a competitor whose valuation no longer depends on PC share, freeing Apple to price the iPhone and its carrier terms aggressively; studios watching the Fox video-on-demand deal face pressure to follow rather than hold back digital rights.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, Macworld becomes a recurring stock-moving event where unconfirmed product rumors — like the current mystery portable — are priced in before Jobs speaks, making Apple's market value partly a function of its own announcement calendar.
The trend: Apple's valuation is decoupling from the PC cycle and re-anchoring to its phone, media, and platform businesses, with each Macworld keynote acting as a scheduled catalyst.