Apple Edges Out Microsoft, Amazon to Retake Most Valuable Crown

(Bloomberg) -- Apple Inc. is once again the world's most valuable company -- but at a much lower level than its former peak.

The iPhone maker reclaimed the mantle of world's largest stock by market capitalization on Tuesday, edging out Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp. for the first time in two months. The list of the biggest names on Wall Street has been repeatedly shuffled this year, with each of the megacap technology names holding the top spot at some point.

The Cupertino, California-based company had a market capitalization of $821 billion on Tuesday after rising for five straight days, inching past Microsoft at $819 billion and Amazon at $816 billion. At current levels, it would be the first time Apple has had this distinction on a closing basis since Dec. 3, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Apple rose 1.7 percent on Tuesday, while Amazon was up 1.7 percent and Microsoft rose 0.9 percent.

Disappointing iPhone sales have weighed on Apple over the past three months, causing the company's market value to plummet more than technology peers, allowing Amazon and Microsoft to jockey for the top spot. Despite a recent rally fueled by optimism following Apple's fiscal first-quarter earnings report, the stock is down 26 percent from a record high in October, back when it had a market cap above $1.1 trillion. That translates into more than $300 billion in lost market value.

Not too far behind the top three is Alphabet Inc., the parent company of Google, which has a market cap of $785.7 billion. The company dipped 0.5 percent on Tuesday in the wake of its quarterly results.

To contact the reporters on this story: Jeran Wittenstein in San Francisco at jwittenstei1@bloomberg.net;Ryan Vlastelica in New York at rvlastelica1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Catherine Larkin at clarkin4@bloomberg.net, Brad Olesen

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