The Dow Jones industrial average once again ventured into uncharted territory today, and investors have Apple, Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) to thank. The Dow surpassed 22,000 for the first time on the strength of Apple’s blowout earnings report.
With the Dow finishing Tuesday’s session about 36 points shy of the 22,000 mark, Apple’s 6 percent post-earnings jump on Wednesday morning single-handedly added about 50 points to the Dow, pushing it above 22,000.
The Dow Jones industrial average is a price-weighted index, meaning that the overall index price is related directly to the share prices of its components. Higher-priced stocks have more of a weighting in the index than lower-priced stocks. Prior to Wednesday, Apple held the sixth-highest weighting in the Dow at around 4.7 percent.
Apple has only been a member of the index since March 2015, when it replaced AT&T (T). In the two-plus years since Apple joined the Dow, its share price has increased 25 percent, while AT&T’s stock is up 17.2 percent.
Plenty of Wall Street analysts expect Apple to provide even more of a tailwind for the Dow in the coming quarters ahead of the launch of the highly anticipated 10-year anniversary iPhone 8 later this year.
“The big question is how much might already be priced into the stock with valuation at recent highs, but with multiple new products looming and services accelerating, we remain buyers,” Robert W. Baird analyst William Power says in a research note.
But while Apple investors celebrate the stock’s role in yet another bull market milestone, others are growing uncomfortable with the level of influence a handful of technology giants now hold on the U.S. stock market. In June, Goldman Sachs analyst Robert Boroujerdi said Apple is among a group of five tech stocks that have created a “valuation air pocket” in the market. He pointed to Apple, Facebook (FB), Amazon.com (AMZN), Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) and Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL).
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index is…
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