Following today's news that the iPhone 5 has set a record with over two million pre-orders during the first 24 hours of availability last Friday, Apple's stock price is rising once more. Apple's share price broke through the $700 mark for the first time today in after-hours trading, continuing the company's meteoric rise as the most valuable publicly traded company in the world.

The stock price has been on a tear -- albeit with a bit of a lull in the middle of the year -- since Apple reported blowout earnings for the first fiscal quarter of 2012, rising more than $270/share, or over 65%, in nine months.



At the end of February, Apple broke through the important psychological barrier of $500 billion in market capitalization, then through $600 billion in April. Apple is now worth more than $650 billion, which is $225 billion -- or approximately one Google -- more than second-place ExxonMobil.