Apple Stock Price Touches $400 During Standard Trading

Monday July 25, 2011 3:56 pm PDT by Jordan Golson

Apple's stock price today briefly touched $400/share during standard trading hours for the first time ever, before falling back slightly to close at $398.50 today. The 52-week, and thus all-time, high is currently $400.00 exactly.

The most likely cause for the 'bounce' off the $400 ceiling are sell limit orders -- semi-permanent orders to sell a certain stock at a certain price. In this case, the $400 level is psychologically significant and a comparatively high number of limit orders would execute at this price.

As a result, the stock hits $400 and "bounces" down again. It appears in the chart above that AAPL nearly breached $400 at 12:54PM and 2:22PM.

Going through the NASDAQ trading report from today, we can see this effect in action:

See pages 27, 26, and 25 (in reverse chronological order) from the 12:30 - 12:59 trading block today. We can see the trades at $399.99 and then a flurry of trades made at $400 as dozens of limit orders are executed. Thousands of shares traded hands at $400, in just three seconds, from 12:53:56PM to 12:53:59PM.

AAPL briefly broke through the $400 barrier in extended-hours trading last week, but this was the first time it touched $400 during the standard 9:30-4 trading day.

Top Rated Comments

(View all)

Doctor Q

36 months ago

Note to self: buy Apple stock in the 1980s.

Rating: 13 Positives

Votekinky06

36 months ago

Man, hindsight's a bitch.

Rating: 7 Positives

King Flamez1

36 months ago

wow. and to think that Apple was almost bankrupt just 15 years ago

Rating: 5 Positives

wilhoitm

36 months ago

The year is 1997.

When it comes to the state of Apple Computer...

At the Gartner Symposium and ITxpo97, Michael Dell, the CEO of competitor Dell Computer added his voice to the chorus when asked what could be done to fix Apple Computer.

"What would I do? I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders," Michael Dell said before a crowd of several thousand IT executives.

The year is 2011.

Dell market capitalization - 32.31 Billion
Apple market capitalization - 369.37 Billion

Rating: 4 Positives

minik

36 months ago

Back in 1999, I told my dad to buy some Apple stock. He never appreciated Apple/Steve Jobs, so he ignored me and bought some other stocks. A day before Macworld 2009, I decided to jump in as my first experience on the stock market. :cool:

Rating: 3 Positives

longofest

36 months ago

Even if Apple shares top out at $430 and you get in at $400, you can make $30 a share (7.5% ROI).

That's assuming you can purchase the stock for free. Most brokerages have pesky buy/sell fees that would cut into that performance a bit.

Rating: 2 Positives

dukebound85

36 months ago

I remember telling my parents to buy AAPL stock when I was like 15 when it was $80 dollars a share. iTunes was a year old and just bought my 3rd generation iPod 15gb. But they waited too long and never did till like 3 years ago...True story

You realize iTunes have been out since before OSX right? more than 11 years ago (and Apple then was no where near 80)....or did you mean the ITMS?

Rating: 2 Positives

nylonsteel

36 months ago

ho hum - yawn
aapl has another blow out quarter
the stock touches 400
yawn
wake me up when she splits 4 to 1
getting bored watching my aapl stock rise with the rest of the tide
anyway thanks aapl for making my worth a bit fatter

Rating: 2 Positives

pyro008

36 months ago

Buying stock in a company because you like their products is not exactly the most sound financial advice.

Rating: 2 Positives