(News Bulletin 247) – The title of the world’s largest capitalization reached a new historic high on Thursday. Moreover, Apple’s weight on the stock market is close to the cumulative value of all the companies listed on the Paris Stock Exchange.

With the accommodating tone adopted by the American Federal Reserve on Wednesday evening, technology stocks regained momentum. Including Apple which set a new all-time high with shares at $199.62 during Thursday’s session.

Since the start of the year, the title of the apple brand has increased by almost 60%, adding 1,000 billion dollars in valuation to bring it currently to 3,100 billion dollars. The company based in Cuepertino therefore remains to this day the largest publicly traded company in the world. Apple operates in the world’s largest stock market (the United States), which accounts for 60% of global capitalization.

Apple = the entire French stock market

And Apple’s stock market supremacy doesn’t stop there. According to an index compiled by Bloomberg and spotted by Fortune, Apple’s market capitalization is gradually approaching the combined market value of companies listed in Paris which stood at around $3.2 trillion as of Wednesday’s close ( including around 2,700 billion dollars for the CAC 40 alone).

Despite the CAC 40 record of more than 7,600 points reached during Thursday’s session, Apple can therefore claim to surpass the Parisian market in terms of capitalization. Which would not be a first for the American technology giant. The Parisian market and the Apple group exchanged their positions “several times during the fall (of prices, Editor’s note) in the second half of last year, when central banks raised their interest rates to fight against the ‘inflation,’ recalls Fortune.

But clearly, the battle is currently going in favor of Apple, which benefits from the support of analysts. Including Dan Ives of Wedbush, known for being very positive on the issue.

Quoted by Investing, he estimates that the upcoming release of the iPhone 15 will push the stock up 20% from current levels. The Wedbush Securities analyst also maintained an outperform rating for the technology giant, and kept his price target at $230. Also, he sees Apple reaching $4,000 billion in capitalization next year. It would be the first global company to reach such a threshold.

“We believe Apple will be the first market capitalization to reach $4 trillion by the end of 2024, given the pace of growth and monetization estimated for the firm over the next year,” he said. he predicted.

However, Microsoft can act as an itch and thwart Dan Ives’ predictions. It must be said that Microsoft is the stock in good shape on the American markets, supported by good financial results, thanks to the dynamics of its dematerialized computing services (cloud) with its flagship brand Azure. The IT services juggernaut is therefore in excellent shape on the stock market, and has grown by 52% since the start of the year. And according to data from Companiesmarketcap.com, Microsoft now weighs more than $2,782 billion on the stock market to gradually get closer to Apple.

This battle between the two American tech giants is reminiscent of the one that took place in Europe in the middle of summer between the French luxury juggernaut LVMH and Novo Nordisk, the Danish pharmaceutical group. The match turned to the advantage of the latter last September.