Apple’s stock, trading under the symbol AAPL.O, climbed about 2% before the market opened on Friday. This jump followed the company’s positive predictions for the important holiday shopping season. The new iPhone 17 models are helping sales bounce back, even amid shipping delays to a major market like China.
Even though these supply issues affected sales in the last quarter, investors are still feeling good. Apple’s new iPhone lineup, launched in September, helped the company’s market value go above $4 trillion earlier this week. This puts Apple in the same league as other tech giants, Nvidia (NVDA.O) and Microsoft (MSFT.O).
The positive outlook also eased concerns that Apple might be moving slowly to add new artificial intelligence features. Other big tech companies are rushing to integrate AI, but Apple is taking its time. Eric Clark, who is the chief investment officer at Accuvest, commented on this, saying, “I just know that owning this stock for many decades… When you’re really big like Apple, you don’t have to move fast; sometimes you have to get it right eventually.”
Despite the recent good news, Apple shares, along with Amazon (AMZN.O), have been the weakest performers this year among the “Magnificent Seven” group of very large companies. However, Amazon’s stock also jumped on Friday morning, driven by strong growth in its cloud services during the quarter.
When we look at Apple’s stock price compared to its expected profits, it trades at 33.4 times analysts’ predictions. This is higher than Microsoft’s, which is 31.7 times, and Meta Platform’s (META.O), at 22.3 times. These figures, sourced from LSEG data, show that investors are willing to pay a premium for Apple’s shares. The company’s consistent performance and strong brand continue to attract confidence despite market fluctuations.
