AAPL closed at another record high Tuesday, ending the day at US$331.29 per share, up $1.72 (+0.52%), on strong volume of 11 million shares trading hands. This is the second record closing high of the year for Apple, with Monday’s record high boosting the company above a market cap of $300 billion for the first time.
Tuesday’s gains occurred amidst a broader tech rally led by Motorola splitting into two companies, Motorola Mobility (MMI) and Motorola Solutions (MSI). Motorola Mobility is comprised of the company’s handset operations, while Motorola Solutions is everything else.
Motorola is a former Mac cloner, the maker of the 68K processor family that powered the original Mac and its successors until Apple went 32-bit with PowerPC. Motorola and IBM partnered with Apple in the development of that processor, too, and the company supplied chips to Apple for its PowerPC Macs.
Motorola was also the first handset manufacturer to partner with Apple in delivering iTunes content to a mobile device. The ill-fated Motorola ROKR didn’t generate much in the way of success, though there’s little doubt the device was a part of Apple’s research for the eventual release of the iPhone.
The twin Motorola companies began trading as separate companies for the first time Tuesday, and MMI ended the day higher at $33.12, up $2.88 (+9.52%) on volume of 12.4 million shares trading hands. MSI also traded higher, ending the day at $39.77, up 2.46 (+6.59%), on volume of 12.8 million shares.
Despite the broader tech rally this action appeared to spark, the NASDAQ ended the day lower at 2,681.25, down 10.27 (0.38%). The DJIA rose to up 20.43 11,691.18 (+0.18%). The S&P 500 was off, ending the day at 1,270.20, down 1.67 (-0.13%).
*In the interest of full disclosure, the author holds a small share in AAPL stock that was not an influence in the creation of this article.