Apple's Stock Price Breaks Through $700, Sets New All-Time Records for Price and Market Cap
Following today's news that the iPhone 5 has set a record with over two million pre-orders during the first 24 hours of availability last Friday, Apple's stock price is rising once more.
Context & Ripple Effects
The milestone lands one trading day after Apple reported iPhone 5 pre-orders topping two million in 24 hours — more than double the one million record set by the iPhone 4S — with confirmed reports that demand is already outrunning initial supply. The pickup was broad: VentureBeat, TechCrunch, AllThingsD, Business Insider, 9to5Mac, TUAW, Phone Arena and The Next Web all carried the same story on September 17, 2012.
The $700 print also caps a five-year arc in the corpus: shares crossed $200 back in December 2007 (Apple Shares Cross $200), so the run to $700 tracks the iPhone's growth from a single product line into the engine of Apple's entire valuation.
First-order effects
- Apple's confirmed supply shortfall against record pre-orders means near-term revenue is capped by production, not demand — every week of constrained inventory defers sales the market has already priced into the $700 share price.
- Investors are treating the launch as a template: the stock's record close ties its valuation directly to the iPhone 5's sell-through over the coming quarters.
Second-order effects
- Apple's own A6 system-on-chip, announced September 15, sits at the center of the bottleneck — suppliers ramping A6 and display output for the iPhone 5 become the swing factor for whether holiday-quarter numbers justify the new market-cap record.
- Rumored iPad mini mass production gives Apple a second product-cycle catalyst stacked behind the iPhone 5 launch, pressuring rivals like Google and Samsung to answer on both phone and small-tablet fronts in the same season.
Third-order effects
- With share price and market cap records now set by product-launch news rather than earnings alone, Apple's quarterly calendar effectively becomes a market-moving event for the whole consumer-tech sector and its supplier base.
- If the pattern holds, Apple's scale forces a structural question for competitors and regulators alike: whether one company's product cadence can keep setting the ceiling for the sector's valuations, or whether carrier subsidies and component capacity become the binding constraints instead.
The trend: Apple's valuation milestones are increasingly set by iPhone launch-cycle events rather than financial results, making each pre-order report a direct input into the stock's record-setting trajectory.