Apple Market Cap Hits $1 Trillion Again, Stock Price Closes To Highest For Year

Apple Inc. saw its stock surge by 2.35 percent to $223.97 Monday, making Apple a trillion-dollar company for the fourth time since it first attained this feat in August 2018. Apple's market cap on Monday stood at $1.01 trillion.

Behind this jump was a prediction Apple's stock will skyrocket more than 20 percent this year due to stronger-than-expected sales of the new iPhone 11 launched late September. The stock's Monday closing price of $223.97 was its highest since Oct. 9, 2018.

The sudden Apple uptick, which led a comeback by tech stocks on Wall Street, came after Apple CEO Tim Cook told a German newspaper sales of the newly launched iPhone 11 phones were off to a strong start.

It was also helped by JPMorgan analyst Samik Chatterjee raising his price target for Apple to $265 from $243. This same analyst forecast a rise in 2019 and 2020 iPhone shipments in a Monday morning note.

“We are modestly raising our iPhone volume forecasts and expect investor sentiment on Apple shares to improve materially given the firm’s ability to drive upward revision to volume expectations despite the 2019 product cycle largely considered to be a muted one,” said Chatterjee in a note that maintained an Overweight rating for Apple.

He projects Apple will sell 198 million iPhones in 2020 and 200 million in 2021.

JPMorgan also boosted its iPhone sales forecasts for the current quarter by an additional one million units and three million more for the fourth quarter. It expects Apple to introduce its own 5G-enabled iPhones in 2020, leading to stronger iPhone sales.

“We expect solid consumer interest in 5G phones at the premium end of the North American market, and Apple is well-positioned to drive an outsized share with its 2020 product cycle,” noted Chatterjee.

Tech's Monday rally helped Wall Street’s major indices recover most of their losses from the previous session on Friday. The tech sector gained 1.2% Monday, the highest among 11 major S&P sectors.

Major stock indices posted solid gains Monday afternoon, closing-out the final day of the third quarter on a high note. The S&P 500 managed a modest increase in Q3. Nonetheless, this helped stocks maintain their biggest year-to-date gains in more than two decades and extend the longest bull market on record into another quarter.

The broad stock market index enters Q4 with a 19 percent improvement for the year. This is Wall Street's best performance since 1997, and comes alongside big rallies in both bonds and commodities.

The S&P 500 recorded 16 new 52-week highs and one new low. On the other hand, the NASDAQ Composite recorded 17 new highs and 102 new lows.