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Apple Inc.’s Worldwide Developer Conference is usually a dud for investors, the day of, the day after and for the next month, according to data provided by BTIG, but the technology giant’s stock broke with history as it rallied to a record close on Monday.
The 11th annual WWDC kicked off Monday in San Jose, Calif., with a keynote speech at 1 p.m. Eastern time. Among the announcements were new augmented-reality features for its next mobile operating system, iOS 12, a measuring app that makes use of AR technology to map the dimensions of real-life objects, changes to its stocks, news and CarPlay apps and new personalized, animated emojis, called “memoji.”
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The stock rallied as much as 1.7% to a record intraday high earlier in the session, before paring gains to close up 0.8% at a record $191.83. It was a big surprise for the stock to close higher Monday, according to BTIG data, and it would be somewhat of a surprise if the stock also rose on Tuesday.
“Notably, Apple stock has never closed up on the actual first day of WWDC, but has closed down 1.2% on average,” Piecyk wrote in a note to clients, sent well before the keynote speech began. “Apple stock has also typically sold off the day after WWDC by a roughly similar amount.”
Meanwhile, the 4.4% gain in the past month is close to how it has performed ahead of past WWDCs.
The following table is how Apple’s stock has performed surrounding previous WWDCs:
| WWDC date | 1-mo. up to WWDC | 1st day of WWDC | 2nd day of WWDC | 1-month after WWDC |
| June 2008 | +1.2% | -2.2% | 0.0% | -6.1% |
| June 2009 | +12.0% | -0.6% | -1.3% | -5.1% |
| June 2010 | +8.5% | -2.0% | -2.6% | +1.1% |
| June 2011 | -0.9% | -1.6% | -3.3% | +2.4% |
| June 2012 | +2.4% | -1.5% | -0.7% | +4.2% |
| June 2013 | -2.5% | -0.6% | -1.0% | -4.8% |
| June 2014 | +6.8% | -0.7% | +0.7% | +3.4% |
| June 2015 | +0.8% | -0.7% | -1.0% | -4.7% |
| June 2016 | +9.2% | -1.5% | -1.4% | -2.0% |
| June 2017 | +4.4% | -1.0% | -0.6% | -7.3% |
| Average | 4.2% | -1.2% | -1.1% | -1.9% |
| Thomson One, Bloomberg, BTIG (MarketWatch) | ||||
Apple’s stock rally has pushed the technology giant’s market capitalization to $942.9 billion. Based on 4.915 billion shares outstanding as of April 20, it would take a further 6.1% gain from current levels for Apple to become the first $1 trillion company.
The stock has rallied 13.4% year to date, while the Nasdaq Composite Index has climbed 10.2% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average has tacked on 0.4%.
Tomi Kilgore contributed to this report.