Apple Takes Another Step Toward Being First Company With $3 Trillion Market Capitalization

Apple approached a historic milestone by the end of stock trading Monday, briefly becoming the first company to trade above a $3 trillion market capitalization before ending the day just under it in an overall strong start to 2022 for Wall Street.

The tech giant rose 2.5 percent Monday, ending just under a $3 trillion market cap on the first day of trading this year after it rose 34 percent last year.

The $3 trillion threshold was broken for a short time when Apple's stock price hit $182.86, and it ended the day at $182.01, according to CNBC.

Apple previously became the first publicly traded U.S. company to pass $1 trillion in August 2018, then passed $2 trillion just over two years later in August 2020.

That growth slowed temporarily amid supply chain issues and revenues falling below expectations over the end of 2020 and through 2021, as Microsoft temporarily passed Apple's market cap when both companies were just under $2.5 trillion this past October.

At the end of 2021 however, Apple surged. Its market cap sits just under $3 trillion and Microsoft's is still just over $2.5 trillion.

The rest of Wall Street had a positive opening day of 2022, with the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average both up over 0.6 percent, surpassing their record highs set last week, with the NASDAQ composite up 1.2 percent.

Technology stocks and a mix of retailers and other companies that rely on consumer spending accounted for a big share of the gains.

Tesla jumped 13.5 percent for the biggest gain in the S&P 500 after reporting strong delivery numbers for 2021.

Bond yields rose significantly. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 1.64 percent from 1.51 percent Friday. That helped push up shares in banks, which rely on higher yields to charge more lucrative interest on loans. Bank of America rose 3.8 percent.

The market's solid start to 2022 follows another banner year for stocks on Wall Street. The S&P 500 closed out 2021 with a gain of 26.9 percent, or a total return of 28.7 percent, including dividends. That's nearly as much as the benchmark index gained in 2019.

The S&P 500's latest milestones, following up on the 70 record highs it posted last year, are a sign investors remain bullish about stocks, despite the recent spike in COVID-19 cases from virus' fast-spreading omicron variant and expectations that the Federal Reserve will begin pushing up interest rates sometime this year to fight rising inflation.

"It's been going on for months and months. We've had all-time highs and we keep hitting them," said Randy Frederick, vice president of trading & derivatives at Charles Schwab. "When you still have a low interest rate environment, which we do, at least for now, (stocks) are the place to be."

The S&P 500 rose 30.38 points to 4,796.56. The Dow gained 246.76 points to 36,585.06. The Nasdaq rose 187.83 points to 15,832.80.

Smaller company stocks also rose. The Russell 2000 gained 27.24 points, or 1.2 percent, to 2,272.56.

The major challenges to the economy and corporate profits that investors navigated in 2021 remain potential headwinds in the new year, including the viral pandemic. Wall Street has been busy since December monitoring the latest wave of cases with the omicron variant.

Businesses and consumers are also still dealing with supply chain problems and persistently rising inflation that has made a wide range of goods more expensive. The rising costs could threaten to crimp consumer spending and weaken economic growth.

Investors have several key pieces of economic data to look forward to during the first week of the new year. The Institute for Supply Management will give investors an update on the manufacturing sector on Tuesday and the services sector on Thursday.

The big event on the economic calendar this week is the Labor Department's jobs report on Friday.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.