Microsoft Has Caught Up to Apple in Market Value

Nov 26 2018, 4:58 PMNov 26 2018, 5:22 PMNovember 26 2018, 4:58 PMNovember 26 2018, 5:22 PM

(Bloomberg) -- Apple Inc. is at risk of losing its title as the world’s most valuable publicly traded company.

A steep decline in the iPhone maker’s share price has left its market capitalization roughly the same as fellow technology bellwether Microsoft Corp. for the first time in more than eight years.

Currently, Apple has a market cap of $817.7 billion, meaning it has shed nearly $300 billion in value after cresting a record $1.1 trillion valuation in early October. Microsoft’s market value is about $816.3 billion. The last time Microsoft was bigger than Apple by this metric was in mid-2010, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Apple has slid amid growing concerns the company is seeing weak demand for iPhones, by far its biggest product line. Shares have fallen more than 25 percent from record levels. While Microsoft hasn’t been immune from weakness in the technology sector, it has held up much better, falling just 9 percent from its own all-time high.

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Shares of Apple were slightly lower in midday trading on Monday, while Microsoft jumped 2.4 percent.

According to Rich Ross, a technical analyst at Evercore ISI, Apple’s stock “has another 18 percent downside,” which could take the stock to $140. “It is not bullish when the biggest stock in the world is in ‘falling knife’ mode,” he wrote to clients on Monday.