Apple to $1 trillion market cap

apple hit a market cap of $1 trillion on Thursday — and hung onto the record valuation at market close — as the iPhone maker became the first publicly traded U.S. company to reach $1 trillion.

The stock gained 2.92 percent during trading after a strong fiscal third-quarter earnings report earlier this week to close at $207.39. It reached the trillion-dollar milestone just before noon ET with a share price of $207.05, based on a recently adjusted outstanding share count of 4,829,926,000 shares.

Investors had previously been looking for a share price of $203.45 to push Apple across the finish line in the race to $1 trillion, but the company's hefty stock buybacks moved the threshold higher Wednesday.

Ives credited the company's growing software and services revenue with driving the valuation. The catch-all category — which includes the App Store, AppleCare, Apple Pay, iTunes and cloud services — posted record revenue of $9.55 billion for the June quarter.

"It just speaks to the vision that [co-founder Steve Jobs] and now [CEO Tim Cook] have had in making sure Apple isn't just a hardware company," Ives said.

Many on Wall Street noted earlier this week that Apple was firmly on the path to $1 trillion. Aswath Damodaran, professor of finance at New York University's Stern School of Business and the so-called dean of valuation, said the stock is still cheap even at $1 trillion.

As of Thursday's close, Apple had gained 22 percent in 2018 and more than 30 percent in the last 12 months.