Apple becomes first-ever company valued at $1 trillion

Apple's share price pulled it to $1 trillion in market capitalization on Thursday.

The tech company, launched in 1976 in a Los Altos garage, revolutionized personal computing - popularizing experimental technologies developed in the Xerox Parc research labs, such as the mouse and graphical user interface.

The Silicon Valley stalwart's stock has surged more than 50,000 percent since its 1980 initial public offering, dwarfing the S&P 500's approximately 2,000-percent increase during the same nearly four decades.

Mr Jobs died in 2011 and was succeeded as chief executive by Tim Cook.

This makes Apple worth more than the economies of countries such as Saudi Arabia, Switzerland and Taiwan.

Facebook just had the worst day in stock market history
Facebook disrupted some business by putting in place new rules to get all political advertisers to verify their identities. That contrasts with ads reaching users who are on industry leaders Facebook and Alphabet's Google for a range of purposes.

UFC's Conor McGregor pleads guilty after throwing hand truck at bus
McGregor hasn't fought since his marquee boxing match against Floyd Mayweather in August of previous year . The window shattered and injured Borg and Chiesa, necessitating their removal from the UFC 223 fight card.

Georgia lawmaker resigns after appearance on Sacha Baron Cohen’s ‘Who Is America?’
In a second section called "How to stop a kidnapping" Mr Spencer loudly shouted the n-word several times to "attract attention". Spencer told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution the show "exploited" his state of mind "for profit and notoriety".

The stock was last up 2.4 per cent at US$206.41, a hair below US$1 trillion.

Apple first listed in 1980 and its stock has risen more than 50,000% since then.

Apple generates billions from hardware sales: It had $29.9 billion in iPhone sales, up 20% year over year, for the June 30 quarter. Incidentally, the trigger price for Apple to reach a trillion-dollar valuation has been slowly creeping upwards as the company continues to aggressively buy back shares as part of its capital return program.

In 2015, Apple joined the Dow Jones Industrial Average, one of capitalism's most exclusive clubs. As a result, Apple has become the first company in history with a market cap in excess of $1 trillion. It is now worth about US$200 billion, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Amazon, Google owner Alphabet and Microsoft have all rallied to near record highs this year, too.