A rally in the stock market sent shares of Apple Inc. rebounding off of losses in the last two trading session, and in the process, made the Mac and iOS device maker worth more than any other company on the planet, including former number one, Exxon Mobil.
Trading remains very active in both Apple and Exxon Mobil, and the market caps for both firms are jumping like a seven-year old on a sugar high, but as of this writing, Apple Inc. was trading at US$361.35 +8.14 (+2.30%), on heavy volume. That share price gives Apple a market cap of $335 billion.
In the chart below, you can see the volatile trading that Apple has seen throughout Tuesday’s trading (you can read an analysis piece from David Winograd about AAPL volatility published earlier Tuesday morning at The Mac Observer).
Source: Yahoo! Finance
At the same time, Exxon Mobile (XOM) was trading at $67.58 per share, down $2.61 (-3.72%), also on very heavy volume. That share price gives the oil and energy giant a market cap of $328.6 billion, $6.4 billion less than Apple, the company that Michael Dell once famously suggested shut its doors, sell its assets, and return the money to shareholders.
In the mid-afternoon session, Dell (DELL) was trading at $13.73 per share, down $0.220 (-1.58%), with a market cap of $25.9 billion.
The chart below shows the last year of trading for Apple and Exxon Mobile in terms of percentage gains and losses. It shows that Apple has been able to overtake Exxon in part because Exxon’s stock has suffered more during the recent bear market than has Apple’s.
Source: Yahoo! Finance
*In the interest of full disclosure, the author holds a tiny, almost insignificant share in AAPL stock that was not an influence in the creation of this article.