20 August 2012: Apple becomes the most valuable company ever
Apple's market value climbed to about $623 billion, surpassing the record Microsoft set at the height of the dot-com bubble in 1999, at least in nominal dollars. The difference was profits: Apple was earning enormous sums from the iPhone, while many 1999 valuations rested on hope. Apple's shares stumbled in the months that followed, but the company went on to far greater heights.
The lesson: Valuations backed by real profits behave very differently from those built on hope and hype.
What it meant for investors
$1,000 in Apple at the start of 2012 → $17,007 today, vs $5,312 in the S&P 500.
We start the clock at the start of 2012, the year it happened. That is 17.0 times the money, and $11,694 more than a plain index fund made over the same years.
What Apple teaches: The best returns often come from companies that looked finished; Apple was a near-bankrupt also-ran in 1997, which is exactly why it was cheap.
| Bought in | Price then | Worth today | S&P 500 would be |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | $14.70 | $17,007 | $5,312 |
| 2015 | $27.00 | $9,259 | $3,301 |
| 2018 | $43.00 | $5,814 | $2,519 |
green = beat the S&P 500 · red = lost money
What if you bought Apple? Every starting year and the full story →
More Apple history
- 2 January 2019: Tim Cook writes a letter nobody wanted to read
- 9 January 2007: Steve Jobs unveils the iPhone
- 24 January 1984: The Macintosh goes on sale
- 27 January 2010: Apple unveils the iPad
- 1 April 1976: Apple is founded, and one co-founder cashes out early
- 11 April 1976: The Apple I goes on sale for $666.66
Could you have called it at the time? The wheel picks the year, you pick the position, ten seconds a pick.
Play Sixty-40