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Shares of Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) on Wednesday notched a record closing high of $197.96, amid a broader market that surged on expectations of interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve in 2024.
AAPL stock earlier added 1.7% to end regular trading at the record figure. It posted a session high of $198, just 23 cents shy of its all-time intraday high scaled on July 19.
Broader markets jumped on Wednesday, with Wall Street’s blue-chip Dow (DJI) notching a new record high after surging past the 37K points mark for the first time. The gains came after the Fed’s updated dot plot pointed to 75 basis points of rate cuts in 2024 and chair Jerome Powell said cuts were “clearly a topic of discussion” for policymakers.
Looking at Apple’s (AAPL) YTD performance, the world’s largest company by market capitalization has seen its stock climb more than 50%, helped by an overall rally in megacap technology stocks.
The advance in the Tim Cook-led company’s shares has come despite a lack of blowout quarterly results this year, as well as worries over the firm’s mammoth valuation and demand concerns for its latest iPhone 15 line.
Apple (AAPL) has also been potentially looking at moving more production to India from China. The Wall Street Journal last week reported that the company and its suppliers were looking to produce 50M to 60M iPhones in India annually over the next two to three years.
Investors are also keeping an eye out on any possible ramifications for Apple (AAPL) after Epic Games, the maker of popular online video game Fortnite, recently won a high-profile case against Alphabet’s (GOOG) (GOOGL) Google after a jury found that the search giant’s Play app store was operating as an illegal monopoly. Apple’s (AAPL) app store also dominates the market along with Google’s.